I really thought Steve Wiles was pulling my leg last week when he told me about “baking” his bowling ball to get the oil out of it.

Steve also said he sometimes stuck the ball in the dishwasher to get the same result.

I could almost picture Jean, Steve’s better half, cringing as Steve shoved the ball into the oven. I envisioned oil dripping onto the bottom of the oven, creating quite a mess.

On the chance that Steve was being truthful, I got on the bowl.com Web site and discovered that you can, indeed, bake a bowling ball, providing the ball is a reactive resin one.

According to the website provided by the United States Bowling Congress, one of the problems with reactive balls is the characteristic of the shell soaking up so much oil and dirt that the reactive characteristics seem to fade away.

Because reactives soak up so much oil, there comes a time where even surface cleaning and even sanding doesn’t affect the ball. The oil has soaked into the shell so deeply that none of the traditional cleaning methods have any effect.

Some experts believe that baking may actually prolong the life of the ball. Baking involves placing the ball in an aluminum pie plate in an oven on low heat (200 degrees) and wiping the oil off the ball as it oozes to the surface. This procedure can be time consuming depending on the amount of oil in the ball. Experts recommend having plenty of clean towels and rubbing alcohol handy.

After a minute, check the ball to see if it has a shiny or wet look. If it does, the oil is starting to bleed. Working quickly, remove the ball from the oven and wipe the surface with the alcohol. Repeat until the ball no longer bleeds oil.

The Web site indicates that the dishwasher method gets the same results without the mess and time involved. Simply place the ball on the lower rack and run it through a cleaning cycle. The hot water and heat draws the oil off the ball, and the water rinses the oil away.

Idle thought: I wonder if getting the oil out of the ball’s shell will help those of us who leave a lot of corner pins on pocket hits. Hmmmm…

Basaldua rolls 300

Rueben Basaldua’s 300 game at Bowl East topped the city’s lengthy list of highlights last week. Several others flirted with perfection. Ed Israel had 289, David Brisco and Kirt Roach had 279s and Luke Alexander and Ricky Banfield posted 278s, all at Bowl East.

Israel’s 732 topped the list of 700-plus efforts. Butch England shot 729, Kenny Snow 727 and Art Lara 714 at Fourth Street Bowl, while David Efird rolled 712, Jim Vanslyke 709, Frank Wiesler 705 and Bill Vickers 701 at Bowl East.

Linda Bailey’s 253-690 at East paced the women last week, but Heidi Burggraf had 245-655 and Candy Brown had six 200-plus games in producing sets of 626 and 656, also at East. Tammy Little posted a 616 and Robyn Laubach 600 at East.

Over at Fourth Street Bowl, Carol Dutton shot 236-638 and Stacy Putnick rode a 256 high game to a 603 series.