What's up over there in the Greater Seattle Area.......Answer is lack of integrity
I guess my main goal in life is to try to straighten out the stupidity of what is wrong with the game or sport by sticking my neck out by writing these articles of truth. Well someone has to do it because everyone else seems to turn his or hers head the other way when something in the bowling world isn't right. As Craig Tuholski would say..."You have big cajones".
ARE SANDBAGGERS RUINING THE GAME.......
OR IS THE GAME IN THE TOLIET.... BECAUSE THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A TRUE AVERAGE IN THE SPORT OF BOWLING
I guess these are the questions I ask you Greater Seattle Bowling Association when currently conducting your city tournament.
Rumor has it..... there is a league being ran somewhere in a bowling center in the Seattle area which is bowling on a "Sport Like" condition weekly. The only problem..... is that the league didn't classify it as a USBC "Sport" league meaning that peoples averages are far lower than there actual ability in comparison with the bowlers that are bowling in other centers in the area. Here is my take on the situation......
1. The Greater Seattle Bowling Association should be ashamed of themselves by allowing anyone to use their average in this league without re-rating them prior to bowling. First of all G.S.B.A. you are allowing unfair play.......you are giving an distinct advantage to those people bowling your city tournament. You can't tell me honestly that you think it is fair or you didn't know about the situation before hand....... Let me refresh your memory with a newsletter that is published monthly about bowling it the Greater Seattle Area.
Jodey Rees shoots 300 in
the Tough Shot Miller
Classic League at HiLineFor only the second time in
five years of the Miller Classic
League at Hi-Line, Jodey Rees
threw twelve strikes in one game
for a rare 300 on the modified
National shot. Rees accomplished
perfection early in September and received a $100 gift
certificate from Hi-Line Lanes.
“I really like bowling on a tough pattern, and even
though I shot 300, my series for the night was only 848
for the 4 game set” Rees remarked. “ The shot is
tough for everybody, and nobody knows how it breaks
down over the course of the four games, so its different
every night. Most everybody seems to be alright with
scoring low.”
The Miller Classic League bowls everyWednesday
night at 7pm at Hi-Line. So if you want to see some of
the best bowlers in the Seattle area on an extremely
demanding condition drop by.
2. The bowlers who only established an average in this league an bowled their city tournament should be ashamed of themselves too. It is a lack of integrity on their part and in a way it is a form of cheating.... Hey if I bowled in that league an averaged 205, common sense would tell me to enter the tournament at 225...... fair is only fair isn't it.
3. U.S.B.C. is mostly to blame........remember their is no such thing as an average... Everywhere a bowler bowls his average is different depending on what kind of shot, what kind of surface and what center he or she bowls at........And since there is no such way to determine that like their is in golf (Slope rating).....bowling will be looked at as merely an unfair game rather than a sport.
Eventhough I believe that the USBC'S Sport average adjustment scale isn't very accurate in determining a true league average......something remotely close should of been enforced prior to allowing these bowlers to bowl under such a low average. But then again if your governing body is too lazy to enforce such integrity issues......and your local association is too much of a dum dum what are you to do. Until a rule is in place this will continue to happen forever......and bowling as a true sport will never be.
December 2, 2008
What should be the true definition for the word sport.......
In today's article I'm going to talk a little about the sport of bowling.........but then again is there really such a thing as a sport in the game of bowling. Here is the example I like best for the definition of the word sport.
Sport is commonly defined as an organized, competitive and skillful physical activity requiring commitment and fair play.
Now honestly does the Professional Bowlers Association and the United States Bowling Congress have all of these traits...... The PBA has all of these things except for fair play, because let's be honest with ourselves bowling will never have a level playing field. Bowling's rules and regulations don't allow for this to happen. Here is a little story that involved me to prove my point.......
The year was 1998 I decided to go bowl 8 stops on the PBA National tour... The lane maintenence crew, the PBA and the ABC at the time were having a lot of trouble with lane equity..... In Tuscon (thank god I didn't bowl that one) only 1 right-hander made the show. The next week at the ABC Masters in Reno the top 4 were all lefthanded. Now next up was Detroit. The leader during the first day of qualifying after 2 rounds was yours truly with 4 out of the next 6 positions being lefthanders. The second day rolls around and while bowling the matchplay portion of the tournament, I notice that to the left of me was 2 lefties bowling each other and to the right of me was another 2 lefties bowling each other and I, myself was bowling a lefty. Now even though only 6 lefties made the top 24 that week, why in the hell are 5 of them surrounding me during this one game of competition. All 5 of the lefties were among the leaders at the time....I think I was in 8th. So while I'm getting my butt kicked and watching every lefty around me strike at will......I decided to say something aloud amongst my fellow southpaw competitiors. (Are we going to have 4 ----ing lefties on the show again this week) I made sure it was loud enough for everyone around me to hear. The next day I noticed that the lanes were so much tighter then they played all week.....but on the left side of the lane it seemed like that took all the oil off. The 7th game of match play that day I bowl a lefty who was at the start of the day in 4th place but ended up the day as the low lefty in the match play portion of the tournament. Anyway I shoot 230 at him while he shoots 160. At the end of the match he starts letting me have it, I guess because of my truthful comment the night before. Obviously the PBA changed the pattern (even though they will tell you that is something they have never done without an announcement or phantom report before). So after the block ended and heading into the locker room he continued to express his opinion to me..........my reply was well I guess there will only be 3 lefties on the show because your ass dropped out..... The guy was so pissed he wanted to go after me........ reason being I guess he was one of those lefties who got a nose bleed when he had to throw the ball over the 3rd arrow to knock the pins down......geez......I was lofting the left gutter most of the week........to end the story I finished ahead of him, but by not very much......I couldn't adjust either because of the gigantic puddle that mysteriously showed up on the lanes the last day of match play after the comment I made the night before. A pretty good lefty went on to win that week, and my prediction of 3 lefties on the show fell short too, as Johnny Petraglia lost the last match to fall out....... But at next week's tournament the Johnny Petraglia Open the highest lefthanded finisher was Johnny himself way down in 50th place..... I guess the lane crew was trying to even things up a little.......
Another good one was the 94 Quaker State Open when the lanes were so dry the first day they were especially unplayable on the left.......I remember Hugh Miller asking lane man Lenny Nicholson......( I thought this was the Quaker State Open .....why isn't there any oil on the lane)......... Surprise!!! Surprise!!!!! The lanes were flooded the next day...........Lol
Think about this for a minute, if there is no such thing as fair play, a level playing field or a true average for that matter........how can you call this game of bowling a sport.
More coming soon..........................................
