Wow, this is one of those interesting subjects. For what it is worth I am giving my opinion on it.

I have never seen anyone do this in my league and one time when it was due to injury that bowler was strictly informed of the rules on this. I think the reason it came up after 8 weeks in your case was probably more of a situation where someone complained about it than a personal vendetta by the Secretary. I clearly understand the rule and think it is an excellent rule.

I understand Erin’s position because a lot of bowlers are looking for an angle. They try to push and find loopholes in the Rules for their advantage. I know this is not the case for you but sometimes people get misconceptions and I think we have all had to deal with that at one time or another.

So at least now you know and you can just pick a hand and move on. I would not take it personal if I were you. It appears as though after 8 weeks someone finally brought it up to the League officers and they acted appropriately. As far as the comment that you are being watched, although I do not know why a lot of people who do this are in trouble but I would assume somehow they are using it to abuse the system.

There was an instance on one of my leagues either last year or the year before where the anchor bowler of the opposing team threw at a 10 pin with his left hand (normally a righty) on the fill ball. It had no bearing on the score as we'd won pretty handily, but we informed him of the rule and didn't pursue anything past that. It was his first league, it didn't change the outcome, and he missed the pin anyway, heh.

The thing that struck me as funny about the situation was what he said when we brought it up. He told us that the secretary said he could do that. There were no meetings or anything to discuss it and it wasn't in the league rules. We talked to the secretary on the side about it and showed him the rulebook and he said "Oh, that's a rule?" Needless to say I don't bowl on that league anymore. :P

I do have a quick rule question though while I'm here. I bowl in a house where there's maybe 4-5 lefties on the whole league, and in general they're very good bowlers. I would never do this, but someone said that next time they bowled one of the lefties they were going to throw weird shots lefty in practice to "mess with their oil". Does that fall under unfair tactics or anything like that?

Practice doesn't count toward league rules, and is no different than a righty screwing with the oil in practice over another's line. Rules take affect when the first ball is rolled in competition.

Welcome to the site JedC.

I believe Dennis is right, it's the same as a lefty trying to disrupt the line of another lefty or a righty doing it to a righty. My question is why would someone want to do something so stupid as to throw useless practice shots to disrupt the line of someone of the opposite hand instead of getting warmed up and getting things worked out on their own side?

As for your story about the secretary who told a bowler he could use his opposite hand, don't you just love when officers don't know the rules? Unfortunately I've come across this several times. I've never been a league officer and now the rule book better than 75% of the officers in all the leagues I've bowled in.

Cal,

That is amazing that an officer would say that. I was a President who had no experience but the first thing I did was go through the rule book. Then if situations came up I just pulled out the rule book and looked it up. I had one situation that was a little complicated and I contacted the USBC for an answer. There really is no excuse for randomly telling someone something is o.k. when you haven't even cracked open the rule book to make sure.

With some of the officers I've had in leagues, I'm not surprised at all that one would say that. Some officers will only enforce rules when they benefit them, for example against a team that is above them or competing with them at the top of the standings, or that will make up their own interpretation of the rule that is completely opposite of the rule.

We had a case last night where a team of Younger bowlers, and I use the term younger to describe their maturity, were losing the final game, and decided to bowl a few spare balls, rolling between their legs.

This is a clear violation of rule 118. They were told to stop by the Pres, but continued a bowler later. The Pres and I had a dicsussion, as I am the VP, and we informed them that being warned, and they continued, they would forfeit their scores. The obvious argument ensued, but the Officers won.

Now the question arose. Do we record a '0' for them as if they had not bowled? Or do we count their game, but with a '0' score? That was not clear.

My contention was '0' as if they had not bowled, since a game recorded as bowled with a '0' score has an impact on bowler averages and handicap calculation. The Pres will call the Association Office today to get resolution.

Dennis, my contention is the same as yours, it's "0" as if they haven't bowled since they forfeit the game. That's how I view it, but I've been known to be wrong before.

I asked our Assoc manager about this. His contention as well as mine is that in a handicapped league including the 0 in his average calculation gives him a benafit. And he should not benefit from poor behavior. Also he didn't bowl the 0. So I believe that his average should be calculated from the two games he did bowl.

Erin

That is what the Association said here, as well. But, in order for the House computer to calculate this properly, the games recorded in the scorer had to be wiped clean, and the bowlers type changed to absent for that game.

We had to finagle the computers to get it right.