Setting A New Standard Brothers Eclipse Record On Same Night

On Nov. 1, Wade Rees was perfect on the bowling lanes at Players & Spectators.

Not only that, he was perfect twice.

In baseball, a pitcher can’t do any better than a perfect game. In football, some would say perfection is not allowing the other team to score. In bowling, perfection is a 300 game.

In his Players & Spectators Challenge League a few weeks ago, Rees bowled two 300 games the same night. His brother and teammate, Jodey, wasn’t too far off that pace with a 299.

Come to think of it, a 299 might be more rare than a 300. To bowl a 299, Jodey bowled 11 consecutive strikes, then on his last roll, he left one pin standing.

“I don’t bowl many 299 games,” Jodey said. “Usually, if I bowl a 299, then I bowl 300.”

Jodey also bowled an “elite series” - three games with a pin total above 800.

Maybe it’s the Rees’ genes. Maybe it was just a good night. Or maybe it’s because the Valley residents have been knocking down pins in leagues and tournaments most of their lives.

Jodey, 29, says he’s been bowling since he was 4 and his older brother, who is 32, since around age 7.

Of course, many other bowlers have reached perfection before. Wade guesses he’s bowled “about five or six” 300 games, and Jodey says he’s had “at least five.”

And if you’re struggling with throwing strikes, maybe you should join the Challenge League. This season alone, the league has had 11 300 games.

One might get the idea 300 isn’t so tough after all.

“Listen, any time you bowl 12 strikes in a row,” Wade says, “it’s pretty special.”

Good point. And what about two 300s the same night?

“Yeah, I’ve never done that.”

So what happens when a guy is in the process of hitting 12 strikes in a row? Do his teammates avoid looking into his eyes, avoid talking to him, for fear of jinxing it? Does he get nervous?

“I’m always a little nervous in the 10th frame,” said Wade with a laugh. “I don’t want to look like a fool out there.”

That night Wade also broke a city record set in 1987-88. By racking up 1,094 pins in a four-game series, he broke the record by one pin.

That’s pretty impressive, but another bowler broke the old city record the same night, too, also totaling 1,094. And the name of the bowler? You guessed it - Jodey Rees.

Ironically, the brothers came close to not showing up that night.

“Neither of us felt like bowling that night,” Wade says.

“If I could’ve got a substitute,” Jodey agrees, “I would have.”

Although the Rees brothers have been hitting pins for years and seen their share of 300 games, they’re glad they decided otherwise.