Michigan man bowls third 300 game of life, then dies
PORTAGE, Mich. (AP) — A longtime bowler collapsed and died at a bowling alley shortly after rolling the third perfect game of his life.

"If he could have written a way to go out, this would be it," Johnny D Masters said of Ed Lorenz, who died at a bowling alley shortly after bowling a perfect game.
AP file photo

Ed Lorenz, 69, of Portage, near Kalamazoo, bowled a 300 Wednesday in his first league game of the night at Airway Lanes. When the retiree got up to bowl in the fifth frame of his second game, he clutched his chest and fell over, and efforts to revive him failed.

"If he could have written a way to go out, this would be it," said Johnny D Masters, who was bowling with Lorenz in the Schoolcraft Miller Lite League.

Jim Lawless, who also was bowling in the league, said two nurses who were at the lanes immediately started cardiopulmonary resuscitation and continued until paramedics arrived.

"He's one of the nicest guys you'd ever meet," Lawless told the Kalamazoo Gazette for a Thursday story. "He's one who would encourage any bowler, even if it was someone who was bowling against him."

Friends said Lorenz, a divorced father of four children, started bowling in 1957 and ended last season with a 223 average. He rolled his first two 300 games in a one-week period in October 2004.

In May, Lorenz was inducted into the Kalamazoo Metro Bowling Association Hall of Fame

Q: What's the difference between Ed Lorenz and a bowling ball?
A: You can only fit three fingers in a bowling ball.