I agree with Deadbait to a certain extent that the BPAA high let the integrity of the sport slip, but that doesn't let the USBC off the hook. If they, the  USBC wanted to put integrity back to the sport, they could do the following; Break their ties to the ball and lane manufactures, sanction one or two balls for national play in all their tournaments, stop letting professional bowlers play in amateur tournaments (Rhino Page leading nationals in team, this is  ridiculous, he's a pro if I ever saw one), bring back classic division for the pros, stop promoting their own stars (Diandra Asbaty for one), work in a constructive intelligent manner to get bowling into Olympics, run your organization with the same degree of integrity as USGA, etc.  

Everybody should lay off the league bowlers. Let em have their fun. We can't afford to lose anyone, because without all these guys bowling, who would all you hotshot, high reving, bowling gods beat in the city and state tournaments?

I am done with my rant.
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Bill

quit whining about it bowl on them if you want if you don't want to bowl on them don't that is fine, but when or if you bowl on a tourney I don't want to hear any whining and crying
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Mainzerpower

League bowling is suppose to be fun.  One house I bowl ini put out  shot that nobody in our league ppreciated.  The PBA experience shot was more consistant.

Some like to bowl league for fun and relaxtion.  Bowling  PBA Experience shot or a very tough house shot is too taxing for those of us who just want to tke the stress off.

There is two PBA Experience legues in our house.  If I wanted to bowl a tough but fair shot, I would join one of those leagues.  If any on this forum bowled San Diego City singles and doubles this year at Admiral Robinson, you seen our house shot. Averages for those who bowled the PBA Experience legaue averged an average of 0 pins higher in the PBA Experience league then the league they bowled in the same house on the house shot.  No I'm noy saying the PBA Experience shot ws or is easy, its just that it was a fair shot.

But some of us just wnt to bowl, maybe have a beer or two and not totlly hve to fry our brains fter three games trying to stay focused on  relatively difficult shot.




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Nicanor (Ten On The Deck)

I think the USBC should mandate flat, sport compliant shots for all sanctioned leagues. Leave the THS for fun leagues and open lanes.

Many years ago in the late 70's early 80's the house shot was what we are now calling a sport shot. Oil ratios than were controlled by shims in the machine, a 2 to 1 ratio was considered an easy condition. Now we complain it's too difficlut.  
If you avg 205 on tour you made a decent living. Only a few bowlers avg 200+ and in league achieving a 200 avg was a recognized achievement.

Reality check time:

Mandate a flat shot for all leagues and you can move up the timetable for league bowling to disappear. I've heard more people complain about LOW scores than high in my life -- and I've been an ABC association president and a recruiter for a set of leagues in another city. Same thing for mandating tame bowling balls.

If you try to make bowling's scoring pace draconian in nature, we'll be at the tree-falling-in-the-woods point very soon: Is there such a thing as a bowler when there is no such thing as bowling?

Both sides of this post are correct to some extent. There does need to be some general toughening up of lane conditions, but all you "sport snobs" posting in this thread can go take a collective flying leap. Not only can the sport not afford to have that opinion out there, the opinion itself is ridiculous. 302efi keeps asking a question no one is answering -- if THS led to automatic honor scores, everyone who could get a ball to roll off their hand would average 250, but that doesn't happen. Skill is still a major component of scoring and nothing you can say changes that fact.

What bowling needs, simply, is more of everything. More THS leagues, more sport leagues, more tournaments, more cosmic bowling, more of it all. People who want to put more and more restrictions on the sport are hurting five times as much as they help.

And besides, what is it exactly of substance that we can bowl for? Tournaments. I use a piece of auto racing terminology to serve as an analogy here -- "self-cleaning racetrack;" meaning, that if someone wants to average deuce-thirty on cake, let them. As soon as they go to a tournament, reality will hit them in the face all by itself. The "racetrack" will clean itself after those guys have their wreck in the tournament. They don't need anyone else to tell them what's what.

Jess





Edited on 4/21/2008 1:40 PM