There were a couple of mild, but nice surprises, in payouts: each bowler received an extra $6, but the bigger surprise (which I should’ve actually known would happen) was that my team, because of the 4th place tie with Team Amelia, split the 4th and 5th place money with Team Amelia (the pinfall tiebreaker only applies to determining positions for the position round). Therefore, the bowlers on my team ended up with $87.50 each (4th place was $90/bowler, while 5th place paid $85/bowler), other than what one of my old leagues called “point money.” The league was also taking up a collection for the Brockton association’s scholarship fund, and I felt I could spare $1.50 for it. The league also had a no-tap (9 pins on first ball counts as a strike) tournament for their bowlers, but, as I wanted to be present at the Westgate Mixed League meeting, I had to sit the tournament out.
There were a couple of discussions of interest at the meeting. First, the question of what constitutes “ready to bowl” came up, and the part of the by-laws dealing with that was clarified to saying basically that a bowler must be ready to bowl when it’s his/her turn, but that a delay for something like bathroom runs could be granted by agreement of the captains. Second, the issue of substitutes came up, and some of the people at the meeting felt the substitutes were being abused (by being constantly switched in and out of team lineups). A suggestion was made to limit each team to one substitute, while I suggested that floating substitutes, which could be used by any team that needs them, could be used. The league eventually voted not to allow substitutes at all, however. A last minor detail is that the snow committee (league officers) would decide whether to postpone bowling because of inclement weather by a half-hour earlier (now by 4:00 PM) than they used to.
The handicap basis is basically the same as for the summer league, with the basis being team handicap of 90% of 1000 (add another 200 for the 5th bowler) with full negative handicaps (for teams averaging greater than the 1000 scratch score). Because Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve fall on a Wednesday this year, the league schedule is a 34 week split season (rather than the normal 36 weeks), with position rounds coming in weeks 8, 17, 26, and 34. The winners of each half will have a 3 game roll-off for the league championship following the last week, and there will also be a roll-off if two teams are tied for first place at the end of each half.
The matter of my team placement is still not entirely clear, but it is clearer than it was before the meeting. There are three of us currently waiting for a team, the other two being Debbie Candora (from the “Shake ‘N Bake” summer team), and Tyler Prescott (a displaced sub in the league). I was told by Donna that if two other bowlers that she’s expecting show up next week for the start of bowling, then that would constitute the full team.
I ended the night at the lanes watching Brian bowl with his female winter league teammate, who I only know as Candy at this time. Noticing her dropping the ball, I made the suggestion of changing her thumb pitch (like what I did), but they really didn’t have the time to have her fit checked last night, so Candy and Brian decided that they would have it done next week.
The Tenth Board 