As I suspected, the USBC responded that it is only supposed to be foreign materials placed on the ball by the bowler, so belt marks do not make a ball illegal. However, belt marks and the like are still going to be disruptive to clean when a dry towel is not sufficient and it needs to be addressed by an officer.

Here are two other additional interesting pieces of information from the response I got.

"Patting the ball with rosin
USBC recently changed our interpretation of the no foreign substance on the outer surface of the bowling ball is allowed and based on the interpretation, patting the holes of a bowling ball allows rosin to be added to the surface which is a violation of the rule. Wiping it off with a cloth does not make the ball in compliance with the rule.

Therefore, if a bowler pats the rosin bag onto the ball and wipes the outer surface clean, the ball(s) would have to be removed from competition. However, since this is a newer change, the bowler may not have been aware and should be issued a warning and the equipment removed from competition. Failure to remove the ball(s) from competition could result in forfeiture of games."

"Removing residue INSIDE a hole
Removing tape residue from inside a hole would be allowed during USBC certified competition with consent from the league/tournament official."

The rosin part doesn't apply to me, but it implies that rosin whether cleaned with a dry or wet cloth is a surface change.

The tape one makes me feel even more sorry for league officers.

Mark

There is a lady Pro in our Summer league who does this every time up. She pats her thumb with rosin, then lays the towel and the rosin bag on the floor behind the ball return.

A teammate of mine is also a PBA card holder and informed her that practice has been banned in tournament play already, but not in league competition. A brief discussion ensued, to which she relented and didn't do it again.

I'm sure it was a habit, and not of necessity. She graduated college on
the women's bowling team, and it was obviously legal then.

I'm really not looking forward to the first time some knucklehead tries to make an issue of this rule. I change out tape pretty frequently. Adding and removing several pieces over a league night. There's no way I'm going to ask permission every time I need to.

The way I read the tape response is only would need approval to use something to clean the tape residue out of a hole. Removing/adding tape would be fine.

Our "house" is the league secretary and have stated that if you need belt marks removed to bring them the ball during league and they will take care of it.

That's how I interpreted it too. I just can't imagine the possible flood of requests coming in to league officers, including permission to clean the inside of a hole with a liquid cleaner just to make sure that cleaner is not touching the outside of the ball.

Mark

Here we go again. Last game Wednesday balls got stuck in the back. My ball came back with rubber more like tar dry cloth just smeared it. League president had to watch me clean. I got outer layer off revealing the underling damage all the way around my ball. And of course I did not see till it was my turn so there was a delay. I was not about to swap balls 8th frame of last game when my Hy-Road was striking. Everyone just had to wait.