Fran Bax and Mike Machuga, I agree with many of the sentiments that both you of you have elaborated about but I would like to clarify the point about BPAA wanting easier conditions back in the 80s. I was at the the BPAA convention when the then 24 rule came up for discussion and a motion was approved to recommend to USBC (ABC/WIBC at the time) that this 24 rule be adopted. Basically, the recommendation stated that centers could not apply oil past 24 but from the foul line to the 24 mark any oil pattern could be applied provided there was a minimum of 3 units of oil WHERE OIL WAS APPLIED. This debate and subsequent recommendation started because of the fact that there were honour scores being thrown out due to severe inconsistencies during lane inspections (remember Glenn Allison), the lane inspection standards from association to association were suspect; lane inspections were literally in the hands of individual inspectors some with little or insufficient training and faulty techniques.The number of honor scores that were being disapproved was rampant and providing a serious, negative connotation to bowling and BOWLING PROPRIETORS.PLEASE REMEMBER, THIS ALL OCCURRED PRIOR TO THE EVOLUTION OF REACTIVE RESIN BOWLING BALLS. POLYESTER/PLASTIC, RUBBER and URETHANE(which had only arrived in the marketplace a couple of years before) were the balls being used. Also remember that this was done BEFORE the advent of a UV additive added to lane oil and the subsequent development of the tape pick up lane readers that are NOW available. Lane inspection was basically done with inspectors doing visual checks for lane oil and by using finger smear tests! Just ask my good friend, Jack Brace about the frustration he went through before finally having his first sanctioned 300 game approved. And Jack was only one of thousands of players to go through this agonizing, disappointing process. Dont get me wrong, there were lane inspections that were done to the letter by fully competent lane inspectors but the inequities across the board were just too many to ignore. Bowling proprietors were frustrated and losing customers because of the controversy and felt that they needed to do something to alleviate the problem. Thus the BPAA RECOMMENDATION was made to ABC/WIBC, AS THE SPORT GOVERNING BODY FOR THEN USBC/WIBC members to adopt the 24 PROPOSAL.Unfortunately, in my opinion, there was never appropriate testing done on the 24 pattern prior to it being approved and implemented by ABC/WIBC and BPAA. Knowledgeable centers realized very quickly the advantages of carry down on the 24 pattern (because this was NOT APPLIED OIL) and how this carry down could be even further manipulated to create even higher scoring.. At the time, proprietors were looking for a solution to provide a consistent and approval method to solve the lane inspection process. Was this solution correct? No because while a MAXIMUM of 24 of the lane could have oil applied to it and where oil was applied, there had to be a MINIMUM of 3 units of oil, NO MAXIMUM NUMBER OF UNITS that could be applied was ever factored in to this equation by either BPAA or ABC/WIBC. And this still applies today!
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 17:18:09 +0000
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