The original New York Media Bowling League

I just saw blog impresario Lockhart Steele tweet about the New York All Media Bowling League. Seems like it’s back on after a long hiatus.

But I would like to point your attention to the original New York Media Bowling League, aka NYMBL (pronounced nimble).

I’ve stupidly failed to keep archives of all my hatchback.net site designs, but above is a screenshot from archive.org of a May 2002 iteration of what once served as my personal site.

The original NYMBL predated the All Media Bowling League by a good four years. At the height of its powers, NYMBL boasted six member teams—Martha Stewart Living, Jane magazine (RIP), Bon Appétit, Blender, Us Weekly, and YM (RIP).

It was an unofficial league, meaning we didn’t have an arrangement with the bowling alley and instead just rented three lanes and bowled against each other. We tried to roll at least once a month on a date mutually accommodating to all magazines—which was difficult given the various “closing” schedules of all the publications involved.

It was fun and relatively headache-free the first couple of times, but once the novelty wore off, various magazine teams had trouble fielding a full team, and since I was the one putting the lane deposit on my card, I’d get stuck with the full bill even for no-shows.

I remember being rather upset and disappointed at the time that people in New York could not commit to a monthly bowling schedule, but with people’s schedules and activities the way they are here, it’s not surprising.

It did teach me that for any such future bowling league, the organizer would have to secure commitment and league dues up front, that way everything would be paid up regardless of whether teams forfeited or showed up for play.

It looks like the New York All Media Bowling league is a true league, which is good. I wonder where they’re bowling now. And also, now that the media is dying, there’s a real danger that teams that start out the season might not have a flag to fly come season’s end.