Well the new season is well on the way for leagues and i have already been on my last nerve for the past 3 weeks of bowling (out of 6 wks).

My team (3 person) is the last years league champs and we started great.  Each of us had an increase in ave of atleast 15 pins over last yr.  Then the lower ave member desided his ave was too high and said he had to lower it (yep bagged it)  with him doing that we went from takin 8 to 6 with the other teammate and myself doing everything poss. to squeeze the win. Out of the last 12 games he has shot withing 10 pins or over of his ave 4 times.  

This last league morning (bowl ar 9am) he was throwing a 12 lb house ball and expecting it to hook like his.  This combined with the fact that i just swithced to 3rd shift and had been up for 25 hours before going bowling just pissed me off and gave me a week that i didn't care.  Thinking of the team i should have just left and used my Kat score but my temper got the better of me and i didn't even have a 500 (171,148,160).  He wanted it so I made it happen, we lost all 8 points.

I am copetitive and to have a team member use a "cosmic" hose ball and throw it straight down the 5th board and expect it to hook from a suit case release was too much.  Even when i said "new ball". "Might want to throw your other ball".  his reply was "its a house ball".  O I almost forgot we were in 2nd place and were bowling the 1st place team (my old team) which i always love to take evey point I can get from them.

After i got home and got some sleep I hated myself for bowling like that. I have worked hard to improve my bowling and try to get to the lanes atleast once a week yr round.  To shoot those scores with a 200 ave i should put my head in the sand.

With being on 3rd shift and getting off work at 6:15, home 6:30 and need to be at the bowling ally by 8:50 for shadow balls (30 min drive) I don't know if it would be better to say good by to the league.  I have been on this league for 4 yrs.  Last yr i was started my own team (was going to bowl with co-workers) ended up haveing a thrown togethter team.

I need to see how working 3rd and bowling in the morning can gell.  I have already paid for 12 wks of bowling so i might give it 2 to 3 wks and see how it goes.   also need to get a better hold on my temper as to not hose my own self and my scroes like i just did. $11 a week to screw around like that i'll end up picking up a bad habit so i can't let it get that far again.

I have no idea how most team captains field an entire slate of reliable and motivated bowlers year after year.  On my team, it's me and my girlfriend as the core.  The rest of the team comes and goes from season to season.  We take whomever we can get to fill out the rest of the team and are grateful.  What we really need is a doubles league, but they seem to have been extinct around these parts for many years now.

The only personalities that have ever bothered me over the years are:

1. People who habitually don't show up to bowl until after warm up just before you're ready to put them in as blind.

2. People who don't show up to bowl on random nights and who refuse to give me the courtesy of a phone call to let me know they won't be there.

3. People who "manage their pin count", but don't do it right and cause us to loose games that we would have otherwise won.  I don't like sandbagging for multiple other good reasons that I won't get into, but if you're going to do it, at least wait until after we can't possibly lose the game and also have total pin count in the bag before you start doing it.

4. People who habitually don't pay each night and who then don't want to make up for it the following week either.

5. People who don't attend the league meetings and who later complain about league rules (especially those related to money and paying on time).

6. The one person who turned out to be so painfully bad and obnoxious a bowler that he didn't belong on any league of any sort. He was not physically or mentally handicapped in any way either.  And yes, of course we did everything we could to help him, but he never improved.  I know how difficult it is to imagine on a handicap league that anyone of any level would not be okay, but you just had to see this guy.