I've been busy moving and havn't really had the chance to read all the posts about the USBC proposals.

All the old timers on here probably remember me writing the ABC on an almost daily basis complaining about the scoring conditions.

Just to set the tone, personally, I applaud the USBC for having enough gonads to try something.

Previous letters from them have outlined some of the problems.  For example:

Lane conditions.

Does anyone really think the houses are going to abide by any new oiling requirements.  There are houses now that don't follow the minimum oiling requirements for a minimum of 3 units on each board.  There's nothing worse than a rule that can't be enforced.  Everyone recommends the houses run tapes before leagues.  Anyone really taken the time to figure out how long that takes, not to mention the expense.

Pulling a tape after an honor score might be a possible solution except for the way the balls pull the oil off the lane.  A lane could be legal at the start of the league but not be consider legal after a 3 game set.

Pins:

Everyone complains about how easy the pins fall.  This is the one area that integrity has been maintained.  Since ABC has been testing pins, every new product that came on the market has met the same standards.  Increasing the pin weight to a heavier pin would lower the scoring.  Unfortunately the group that would be the most penalized is out bread and butter bowlers, those around the 170 range.

The only recourse the USBC has at the present time is to start putting limitations on the balls.

For the older guys, remember when the plastic balls came out in the 70s.  I can't remember exactly when but Columbia introduced a new plastic ball with the sparkles in it.  At the time, ABC didn't want to sanction the ball because back then there was a rule about additions to the coverstock.  Those "sparkle" balls were allowed because the sparkles were not in the coverstock but were imbedded too deep to contact the surface of the lane.

Somehow that specification got changed which led to the particle balls we now have.  Suddenly we now have particle balls with diamonds, the hardest substance available.  I shudder to think what that does to a lane surface.

In my opinion, the USBC is on the right track.  

Lets look at their requirements.  No more than one inch of label shift, no balance holes.

Stop and think a minute.  We all complain about the sandbagging.  If people are so low as sandbag to gain an advantage, why not drill up an illegal ball to help them even more.  

For those of you that have been to an ABC tournament, you probably noticed you cannot use any type of cleaner on your ball once its checked in.  Why???  Because the ABC officials have no idea what is really in that bottle of cleaner you are using.

The same thing with equipment.  During league, how do you know that pin out ball with the CG kicked out, big balance hole brings the ball back to legal.

With the new requirements, us league bowlers can look at the ball and have a good idea if it is legal or not.

Is everyone going to be happy??  No way, at least the USBC is trying to do something.

Had to laugh at an earlier post where one of the youngsters recommended that an * be placed in the record books to indicate the records were shot under different conditions.

Maybe there should be a ** for those like Sawbones that shot 8 300s in 1962 in the good old rubber days.






--------------------
~~~SrK - Have balls, will travel

Spending the kids inheritance one tournament at a time.