Fish,

I understand. I am asking can a league adopt a rule that I am suggesting. A bowler cannot receive anymore handicap than their "handicap base" across the entire league season.

It's a new term.

Handicap Base = Handicap calculated using Bowler's previous year average.

since we are on another page here was my proposal:

Can a league adopt a rule like this?

How about a bowler's previous year's average is their base handicap for the current year.  A bowler ends with a 204 average for the previous year. So in a handicap league set at 100% of 220, that bowler receives a handicap of 16. No matter how far this bowler goes under their average in the current year they cannot receive more than that handicap base. Of course if their average goes up, their handicap descreases, but it never increases beyond the established base.

An exception to the rule. If someone sustains an injury, then you might put it to a captain's vote to have a handicap increased.

You could be a little forgiving maybe give the bowler and additional 10. So in my example the bowler's average to drop to 194, but anything less is only going to get 26 handicap.

Now teams and bowlers who sandbag would have to tank whole seasons to get a clear advantage. Obviously that could easily be shown in standing sheets from year to year.

To add: You would still keep scores for the current year. Average would be determined by the current years score for next year.

Another idea: Could the league then adopt another rule base on how much you current year's average compared to last year. The rule would be a person could only drop 10. So if a person drops 20 pins in the current year, their average used to establish a base handicap for the next year would be 10 pins higher.

Now you curving them down. Reach a level. It's going to take several years to get that average down 50 pins lower.

Darn. I thought I was first to think of this.

I understand you don't get rid of the guys that pour it on and lay back through out the season. But to me this would cut the clear blantant dropping of average at the beginning of the year.

As far as things go Fish. Keep up the reporting. I am thinking of trying to get local bowling scene back into our local news. With our high school team being so successful this past year, bowling is becoming a little more popular.

I haven't read every comment here but I wonder if the true motivation would be handicap pots/brackets?

Urethane Game brings up a good point. What is the motivation for this? Most summer leagues, that I have bowled in or seen, aren't big money leagues as far as prize money. Is this league an exception to that? Is it for handicap pots/brackets as UG mentioned? Is there a local big payout handicap tournament in the near future that uses current (summer league) average? Again, I have never seen one like this where they wouldn't use at least last winter league averages. Unless these individuals only bowl this summer league, they would have established higher winter league averages. Is it just to say they won this league every year? Those would be my questions to Scott Long.

Dear jorge300:

I get the impression from Scott Long that he strongly feels it's not just one team that is sandbagging; rather, he apparently claims that a number of teams and individuals are allegedly guilty. And as you imply, it's a virtual certainty that most (if not all) of the "suspected" individuals have established averages that COULD be used for entering-average purposes when joining (or re-joining) a league.

This week's league standings aren't posted yet, but I just noticed that Dolores Meyers had an 866 handicap series (when she rolled that 707 scratch last week). Think that might hold up for high women's handicap set for the season?

That is what I was referring to in my earlier post.

This is why you never establish an average with at least 6 games and then by the 3rd week people can use what they established.  Until you establish an average you use the highest from last year from the USBC records, if no bowling last year, go back the previous year, etc....  Until then if no record then and only then will averages be established after 3 games

Could also put a limitation on awards for instance only handicap scores after the 9 games established (10th forward) will be eligible for handicap based awards.

I would make it very clear on what those rules will prevent and people will agree to them if most of the league is honest.  Even if leagues don't have this problem they should be proactive.  The minute it happens everyone knows about it and then that league gets a bad rep.  Around here a bad rep will kill a league the next year, but only about 12 teams in a league so doesn't take much to cripple things.

So after all that you have now reported Mighty Fish, do you now believe they are sandbagging? I don't know how you could say "whether or not they sandbagged the first night." You have to be smarter than just giving them the benefit of the doubt. It seems in my mind these are all low class sandbagging scum and doing it more for their own egos and to beat down their opponents, than anything that could be won in prize money in a summer league. These are the type of baggers I see in my winter league as ours is not a big money league. They are actually more frustrating because egotistical clowns like these are worse than the ones who are trying to just win cash.

Idk about all of you "pros" on this forum but it takes me 3 or 4 weeks to get my game up to par every year....I flat out suck at first...but so does everyone else..usually.   I'm glad I don't have conspirators losing sleep at night over my "possible" sandbagging.  "Dun-dun-dunnnnnnn"