Are bowling leagues promoting sandbagging and dumping ?

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Found an interesting bowling topic that we all deal with and know is going on all the time. Its so sad to admit it. - Why Do Bowling Leagues Promote SandBagging and Dumping ? (http://www.epicbowling.com/bowling-discussion/why-do-bowling-leagues-promote-sandbagging/)
I bet we all have seen leagues do nothing at all about dumping even when they see it.

[J Anderson]

Found an interesting bowling topic that we all deal with and know is going on all the time. Its so sad to admit it. - Why Do Bowling Leagues Promote SandBagging and Dumping ? (http://www.epicbowling.com/bowling-discussion/why-do-bowling-leagues-promote-sandbagging/)
I bet we all have seen leagues do nothing at all about dumping even when they see it.

I don't think that leagues promote sandbagging, at least not on purpose.

One part of the problem is that even the casual leagues that are more social than competitive have become money leagues. The leagues where your reward was a trophy are becoming a thing of the past. When money is on the line, the temptation to cheat becomes greater.

Another part is that usually secretary and treasurer are often the only officers who know what their job entails. The others don't have a clue as to what they could be doing to cut down on sandbaggers.

Thirdly, its very difficult to prove that someone is deliberately bowling less than their true ability.

[e-tank]

^^

agreed. My league is a fun league but we do a sweeper for money and sure enough the biggest sandbagger in our league won the pot last time

[billf]

Well in the year between your posts this topic was discussed extensively. Your idea to help stop this atrocity?

[swingset]

As long as I've lived I've never understood handicaps in the game of bowling....or in any sport for that matter. The score is the score, deal with it. Don't like losing? Get better.

I can't imagine my experiences with football, or wrestling, or baseball if my skill had been put on a curve and points were given automatically to people with lower scores.

I can't change the tradition, but I've always been in favor of abandoning that silly point system for scratch scoring. Unfortunately, because bowling for so many is considered a quasi-gambling recreation, it's here to stay.

And, with it comes sandbagging and other manipulations. I guess actions have consequences.

[Greenday]

Scratch bowling is the only way to avoid sandbagging. Now that I've gotten my average above 200, it kills me to bowl against a two man team and give up nearly 100 pins to handicap. Then when one of those 150 average bowlers bowls a 230, the game is over no matter what my partner and I do. What incentive does someone in my position have to not sandbag? I'm not good enough to win a scratch league but handicaps can be a huge unfair advantage for the lower average players.

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with bowling being just a math game, its easy for these dumpers to take advantage and even abuse the system to make money. I have seen them say they will re-rate a bowlers average if they believe his average is fake. I have never seen it happen yet in all the years i am bowling. I my vacation league they let a lady come in with a summer average, which that is never allowed. The average she sad she had was 81. She goes on to shot 630 scratch and her team ends up going undefeated for the like 8 weeks. That is pretty hard to overcome.

[billf]

^^^that is some BS right there and shouldn't have happened. Those league officers should be ashamed of themselves! Now I understand your frustration.
I rolled an 800 two weeks ago and we still lost. My team had a lot more scratch pins but not total w/hdcp

[Gunny]

It's part of the game now, some people do it, and some don't. If you want to compete in a hdcp league, your gonna have to play the game accordingly. Otherwise bowl in scratch leagues. What some of our league has done to minimize it, was to implement a 10 pin drop rule. Throughout the course of a season your avg will never drop below your highest book avg. that you entered with. Keeps the baggers in check.

[billf]

Here's a funny one for you.
A guy in my scratch league openly says he sandbags because State uses handicap. Carries a 198 avg into State and gets into 20 brackets saying how he was going to clean up. I knocked him out of five brackets the first game, Derrick got him out of two the second game and in game three I knocked him out of another six. He did win one bracket. Money for 20 brackets= $100 money won $20 serves him right!

[Greenday]

with bowling being just a math game, its easy for these dumpers to take advantage and even abuse the system to make money. I have seen them say they will re-rate a bowlers average if they believe his average is fake. I have never seen it happen yet in all the years i am bowling. I my vacation league they let a lady come in with a summer average, which that is never allowed. The average she sad she had was 81. She goes on to shot 630 scratch and her team ends up going undefeated for the like 8 weeks. That is pretty hard to overcome.

That's pretty excessive sandbagging. There's a difference between "Hey, I'm just going to miss a little so I don't strike, keeping my average from jumping up another 5 pins a night" and "My average is only 81" then throwing a 210 average series.

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When they put in 5 and 10 pin drops that will only promote them to dump even more. I see that in my league they try to dump at the beginning of the season first 3 weeks to get to the drop so they can abuse handicap, or they drop right at the end of the season so they can come in 5 or 10pins lower the next season to stack a good team.

[Aslan]

As long as I've lived I've never understood handicaps in the game of bowling....or in any sport for that matter. The score is the score, deal with it. Don't like losing? Get better.

I don't agree with this. Handicaps, whether its golf or bowling get people interested.

I use to golf in an annual outing. I was horrible...barely knew how to play. I'd get 177 over 18 holes. The only prizes I'd ever win was "most lost balls". One year, in the championship round I had the best round I ever played. Not good for scratch golfers...I mean I shot probably a 125. I won the tournament and the trophy. Sure, there were guys that shot 102, 100, 95, 92...but if there was no handicap...what would possibly be the point of ever even playing?? I've been playing golf for 10 years and never had a score under 115.

Same with bowling. You get 3-4 ole buddies together that have 215 averages...how are the Lanes going to find 9 other teams that want to pay $24/week to play against them? They won't.

My solution....other than being more strict with sandbaggers...divisions. A scratch division that plays for money, handicap division that plays for trophies. At some point...the 195+ average players will want to move up and play scratch...and at some point, maybe some of the better scratch bowlers will want to move up and play in tourneys rather than house leagues.

Unfortunately, it's like any sport:
1) When money is involved, people WILL cheat. Golf, paintball, bowling, hockey...every sport I've played in...when money was involved, people would cheat.
2) There's always gonna be that really good player that just wants to hammer the competition and is too afraid to play against people who could beat him. So instead of going to scratch tournaments and maybe a PBA open....he's gonna join a handicap house league where he's "king" for a day. Hockey was the WORST for that....guys who used to play junior hockey joining C-Leagues scoring 3-4 goals a night. Or even college football...non-conference games...University of Michigan vs. Our Lady of St. Francis....69-0.

[MICHAEL]

Found an interesting bowling topic that we all deal with and know is going on all the time. Its so sad to admit it. - Why Do Bowling Leagues Promote SandBagging and Dumping ? (http://www.epicbowling.com/bowling-discussion/why-do-bowling-leagues-promote-sandbagging/)
I bet we all have seen leagues do nothing at all about dumping even when they see it.

why do they promote sandbagging???? They don't have to promote it! Sad but true, it's HUMAN NATURE!! Greed, the desire to win at all cost, including honor, and did I say money! Not all of us are sandbaggers, just like not all politicians are dishonest, cheats, and liars, ,,, , well maybe not a good analogy! But you get my point!! Honor is a rare quality now days!

[GoodGravy]

Just having a thought about this: Since you can't account for all the scumbag cheaters out there, and you don't want to discourage new bowlers buy having a free-for-all handicap system, why not change the way scoring is done in the league by making the games further out in the season count for less points?

So, the first 20% of the game sets are scored by each individual game win gets 5 points and total pin count gets 5 points for a total of 20 points per week. The next 20% of games the points drop to 4 per game and 4 for total pin count for a total per week of 16 pts. The decrease in overall points keeps going until the final 20% of the games where you get 1 point per for a total of 4 points total. This may look like all the games in September are worth 20 points, the games in October are worth 16 points, the games in November are worth 12 points etc..etc...etc... The only down side I can see to this is that by the 3 round or so, if somebody is way a head, it would almost impossible to catch them, but at least you would not get teams 'playing off' for the first 3 or 4 weeks to establish a high handicap and then pour it on during the last part of the season.

Not sure if this would work well, and would be a bit confusing for folks to track at the team level....

[Aslan]

The best way to handle these type of things is "divisions". The "problem" is...divisions require a large number of teams...which most sports can't generate. Like in hockey or softball...lots of teams...easy to make divisions. But as soon as you have a few elite teams...but not enough to make a full division...then you're screwed. But if it's "possible" to make divisions...that could work rather well. They do that in that ABT and TAT tournaments. They have a <202 division, under <189 division, etc...

The problem is, it doesn't really solve the sandbagging...because people will sandbag to get in the lower division. I don't know....nevermind...it's incurable.

[Hampe]

The best way to handle these type of things is "divisions". The "problem" is...divisions require a large number of teams...which most sports can't generate. Like in hockey or softball...lots of teams...easy to make divisions. But as soon as you have a few elite teams...but not enough to make a full division...then you're screwed. But if it's "possible" to make divisions...that could work rather well. They do that in that ABT and TAT tournaments. They have a <202 division, under <189 division, etc...

The problem is, it doesn't really solve the sandbagging...because people will sandbag to get in the lower division. I don't know....nevermind...it's incurable.This is probably the best way to eliminate sandbagging. The company league I play in is like this....37 teams over 5 divisions (A-E). Each division has 8 teams (3 of the divisions have a "computer" team that the teams in that division play against...the computer teams get slightly less than the average score for the division they are in). If you win your division you move up to the next division, and the last place team drops down. This is by far my favorite kind of league set up, since you are bowling scratch against people of similar ability.

The biggest problem, like you noted, is the number of stable teams required (you can't just form some random team every year). You do still get some teams "sandbagging" so they don't move up to the next division because they think they will lose every week (stupidest thing I've ever heard), but that's also usually the minority.

[Stormed1]

As mentioned in one of the previous post it all boils down to greed in 99% of the cases. In my Friday league it runs rampant as the doubles pots atr $1800-2500/Game. Originally they were second and third game. But you would contantly see guys go 150/250/260. We changed to a drawing in the third game where we drew 2 chips to determine which games were the doubles. The chips are drawn in the 7th or 8th frame of the third game. It has slowed it down some but we willstill see guys throw away the last 2 or 3 frames if they draw the 1st & 2nd game. Or we will see guys have two good games to start and will then throw away the third because they know they will cash in at least one. They guys who run the pots make about $7,000 (they get 10% off the top) per year so they don't want to change anything. I made the suggestion to hire a secretary to do a pot average sheet. What would occur is any game 20+ pins below your average would not count against your average, We used to use this in a weekly red pin where therere was a $600.00 shot in which what you needed gor pinfall was based on your average and it worked well

[Aslan]

If you win your division you move up to the next division, and the last place team drops down.

Thats the other part that they need to do. I can't really stand soccer...but the way Euro leagues are set up where the best team in one league replaces the worst team from the year before is a pretty darn good system. That way, if you want to try and sandbag to win your <202 championship...guess what...you're in the <221 next season.

[Hampe]

That way, if you want to try and sandbag to win your <202 championship...guess what...you're in the <221 next season.Well, that's the advantage of this system.....since the teams in the divisions are equal, there is no handicap, so you can't really sandbag your way to division champion. It is a really fun system though, and gives the league and teams some cool history.

[Aslan]

Well, that's the advantage of this system.....since the teams in the divisions are equal, there is no handicap, so you can't really sandbag your way to division champion. It is a really fun system though, and gives the league and teams some cool history.

I TOTALLY agree regarding the history. I mean, if you have a team in the league for 4-5 years, you may have a year where you won and got moved up with the "big boys"...or maybe you struggle early and get bumped down then have some success in the league below.

[Hampe]

Yea exactly :). Some teams were once the top dogs of the A league 15-20 years ago, but lost some players or they got old and now they're down in the C or D league. My dad and I started our team 4 years ago and started in the E league. The first season we finished last place. We've gotten better each year and this year we will be playing in the C league :D. And I only know of one guy who sandbags in this league, and thats only for the 2-3 tournaments associated with the league (the tournaments are also scratch, but are tier/division based on average). It's kind of dumb since the tournaments are for trophies and a small amount of money (Iceman would love them :D)

[Aslan]

The key is...like in euro soccer...to make the A-league desirable. If the only difference is a bigger trophy...might not be enough motivation. But lets say you do THIS:
4 leagues, 5 teams per league...A, B, C, D. A and B are scratch, C and D are handicap. B league awards trophies for 1st, 2nd, 3rd...1st place bumps to A the following year and the 5th place team in A moves down. Same thing happens in C and D...best D team moves up, worst C team moves down. C and D leagues only award 1 modest trophy for 1st place.

And...to make people "want" to get moved up...nice trophy for 1st place in B. REALLY nice trophy (possibly even perpetual trophy) for first place in A-division and ALSO..cash prizes. $4000 for 1st, $2000 for 2nd, $800 for 3rd.

How to generate the prize money? All 4 leagues pay $10/person each night. The teams in the A-league benefit...where as B, C, and D will at best get a trophy...but the main bulk of the money goes to pay for trophies and A-league payouts. That gives incentive, like in EU soccer, for teams in the B league to finish first and get bumped up. It gives teams in the A division motivation NOT to get bumped down. And sandbagging/dumping would be reduced to nearly ZERO because the only thing you can win in C and D league is a small trophy.

I like it. Me and Hampe need to open up and alley and start some leagues!!!