I would like to know is there any rule governing practice bowling. Our league provides ten minutes of practice prior to the start of the games. One gentleman was a little late in arriving and therefore missed the alloted practice time. Once play began, he went to a lane that was unoccupied right next to our team and began throwing practice balls in between his regular league play frames. My husband who is the Sargent at Arms for our league told him he was not allowed to do this. It seemed to be such an unethical thing to do, we were pretty sure that this was against league rules. The situation turned a little nasty, however the employee of the bowling alley said it was ok. My husband then went to the manager who also said it was ok. However this seems to fall under the unfair advantage rule to us. How would the alley be able to accommodate all the bowlers if they want to practice in between their frames? If you're going to let one do it...................
Please advise.
Thanks!
Cheryl
Yes, he can do that and to answer the next question......No, you may not have a league rule preventing someone from doing the exact same thing. He should pay for the frames, but that is between him and the manager.
Not only is it ok to practice on lanes that are open, try out a different ball for example or just warm up, it is ok to bowl in another league at the same time. It is not ok to not be ready to bowl when it is your turn. As mentioned paying for that time is between the manager and the bowler, no free practice when late for the scheduled ten minutes is guaranteed.
When there are open lanes where I am coaching junior bowlers I will sometimes hustle a beginner over to those lanes when hands on instruction is needed for beginners to get the hang of walking and swinging together.
Don Gates
skullpants, when you are working in a 40 lane center there is no time to waste to get them to lanes 39-40 and back in time to take their turn before complaints mount and put an end to my 'hustling' efforts to get newcomers to stay in the game to match and maybe even excede your 'hustling' efforts to get them out of the game.
Thank you for your responses. Now the rest of the story. This team had also bowled rather badly their first couple of weeks, then about week 3 suddenly they became much better bowlers, I believe that is called "sandbagging". So they eventually moved into the first place position. The "practicing during bowling" incident happened our 2nd to the last week of the summer league. Our last night was this past Thursday. They went into the night in first place, so imagine our surprise when we did not see them at warm up... at least we thought. Then we found out they had "pre-bowled" stating that one of their members had had a death in the family. The other team they were bowling (who is also the team that the secretary is on) were unable to meet with them as the only time they said they could bowl, was during the day and all of the team members they were opposing were working during the day. So basically they bowled by themselves. However when Thursday night rolled around, we suddenly started seeing the members of Team 7 around the alley. 2 on one end, and the gentleman who was doing the practicing during league, on the other end with another new league that had just started that night. Many of our members were upset by this. They had enough members to constitute a legal line up there. Only one member was not at the alley. We were all quite distracted by the fact they were there and initially not bowling our best. We talked with the other officers and team captains and our president decided that depending on the outcome, possibly move to have their scores voided. In the end the way the scores landed, Team 7 fell from 1st to 3rd place. Not to mention that one of the members from the team they would have played, bowled a 300 and a 296 his second and third games! Playing well is always the best revenge I guess.
casavenus:Thank you for your responses. Now the rest of the story. This team had also bowled rather badly their first couple of weeks, then about week 3 suddenly they became much better bowlers, I believe that is called "sandbagging". So they eventually moved into the first place position. The "practicing during bowling" incident happened our 2nd to the last week of the summer league. Our last night was this past Thursday. They went into the night in first place, so imagine our surprise when we did not see them at warm up... at least we thought. Then we found out they had "pre-bowled" stating that one of their members had had a death in the family. The other team they were bowling (who is also the team that the secretary is on) were unable to meet with them as the only time they said they could bowl, was during the day and all of the team members they were opposing were working during the day. So basically they bowled by themselves. However when Thursday night rolled around, we suddenly started seeing the members of Team 7 around the alley. 2 on one end, and the gentleman who was doing the practicing during league, on the other end with another new league that had just started that night. Many of our members were upset by this. They had enough members to constitute a legal line up there. Only one member was not at the alley. We were all quite distracted by the fact they were there and initially not bowling our best. We talked with the other officers and team captains and our president decided that depending on the outcome, possibly move to have their scores voided. In the end the way the scores landed, Team 7 fell from 1st to 3rd place. Not to mention that one of the members from the team they would have played, bowled a 300 and a 296 his second and third games! Playing well is always the best revenge I guess.
if they followed the rules when scheduling the pre-bowl, there's no reason for the members who were able to make it to the alley to not come in. i do, however, hope that the members who made it in watched their first-place dreams being dashed by an 892 series. i have no patience for "adults" who go out of their way to attempt to cheat their way to the top of a summer league.
