A friend gave me his used Yeah Baby! last week. I kept the same layout (had to move fingers slightly and reslug). It came out to 4 1/2 x 4 5/8, 1 5/8 above my midline. There was already an x-hole...it happened to fall on my VAL 1 3/4 down from my PAP. Statics are 1/32 of pos. side and 1/16 of thumb.
The shop that did the work gave it a resurface with some diamond pads and eventually ended up at 2000 abralon. I didn't bother to throw it with this cover prep as I figured it would be too strong. I attempted to sand it back to 800 and hit it with a light coat of Ebonite Factory Finish polish, which is the same prep as I have on my WCR. The problem here was it seemed like the 800 wet sand didn't do a darn thing to the cover. This became even more apparent when I applied the polish and it turned out incredibly shiny...much moreso than my WCR. I took it to the lanes and didn't care much for the reaction. It was quite long and had an unpredictable backend reaction. By comparison, my WCR was about 2 feet earlier with quite a bit more backend. This was a "medium" THS with some open play on it.
I then decided to just try and haze up the surface a bit with some 2000 Abralon. I tried to do it by hand but it wasn't doing much so I threw it on the spinner. I used very little pressure and some water. It came out duller than I wanted but didn't have time to fudge with it anymore. I took it to league and promptly shot 290 with it. However, I could tell that it was burning up a bit in the heads. My WCR on this condition was much cleaner, read the midlane too late, and was squirty on the backend. I was lucky to get that 290 as I fell off bad after that. The WCR was over/under. The YB was better, but it was just so strong that it was killing the backend. I've never seen a ball roll that early on a fresh shot around here.
I know there's got to be a happy medium here somewhere, but I need some assistance in finding it. I don't have a ton of different pads or polishes, but I've been able to find something that works almost every time. I also understand that this is a very strong ball and that I have a pretty low pin position. I'm not opposed to redrilling, but I'd rather try some other things first.
Don
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"On-base percentage is great if you can score runs and do something with that on-base percentage. Clogging up the bases isn't that great to me. The problem we have to address more than anything is the home run problem."
~Dusty Baker being a total fool
