The day the free game died. I am not enthusiastic about telling this story, because it's not exactly promotion for our sport. But this is what happened, and it had some impact in Europe. Early nineties, Dutch championship free game, two flights of five players. Harrie van de Ven played some of the best (and fastest) serie Americaine ever seen on the planet. He wins his four flight matches to 400 points, all four in 1 inning. Cross semifinal: he wins in 1 inning. Final against Raimond Burgman. Van de Ven starts and does it again, 100, 200, 250 points. 287, and the ref sends him to the chair, because one of the two object balls (according to the ref) was still moving when Harrie hit the next shot. Burgman comes to the table, makes 400 and wins the Dutch title with 120-something tournament average. Van de Ven has 381.16 average, he has not missed in the entire event, and he wins the silver. Quite a few good players in the classic disciplines gave up on the free game that day.