Why do I keep getting stuck in my thumbhole?

[J Anderson]

Assuming you're an adult male here, what size and color of tape do you use? Do you use it for both front/back of the holes?

Lately I've been using 3/4" white on the front ( pad side of thumb, not the nail side ). Years ago I used to use black electrical tape on the back side.

[scottymoney]

I use electrical tape now as when I had my one ball drilled he couldn't do it when I was there, he took my measurements and did it later on. Wife went and picked up the ball so obviously she couldn't test it for my grip as I would have done. When she got home with it, it was awful. The thumb hole was way too small, to the point where I could hardly get my thumb in. Went to league early the next week and had the guy there drill it out for me, which he did and it felt better. So gave it a try during warm ups and it was still bad sticking all over the place. I launched it halfway down the lane as my thumb stuck so bad it made me basically throw it. Ran back and needed the guy to bevel it out a couple times. After 2 trips to the guy it was big enough, but now it was too big! I didn't think anything of it that night about it being too big, but the next day I could feel the pain in my forearm from gripping too tight. I realized what I did and since this was a plugged and redrilled ball I got for free(will be replacing soon), I decided to grab some electrical tape and experiment on taping. I use 2-3 piece in the front and back each, then I put one on each of the sides. The ones on the sides are more just for feel and have found they protect the thumb a bit. After a game or 2 if I feel it getting tight i remove a piece from the back and that usually fixes the tightness. Surprisingly I haven't had any issues with stickiness after removing tape.

Like I said, this ball will be getting replaced as it was a used ball that my Father in law gave me to try and it is a 15lb ball which I want to get back to 16 instead. I kind of liked that I had trouble with the thumbhole on this ball as it gave me a crash course on "thumb hole managment" hahaha. I now know when I get my new ball what I need to make sure it fits right.

[Hammer]

I would do a couple things to get this straightened out. One have a pro shop check your thumb hole by putting the thumb in the hole without the fingers in and see if you can put your thumb in and out without it hanging up on the sides of your thumb. After that put your fingers in the ball first and then your thumb and see what happens when you try to get your thumb out. Have the pro shop check the pitch of your thumb hole. If this don't give you good results have a thumb slug put in your ball and have it redrilled for your thumb size and the right amount of pitch put in it. What my pro shop had me do when I had a thumb slug put in to resize my thumb hole we went into an empty carpeted room and he had me get into a position as if my slide foot hit the foul line and my balance leg was behind me. Then with the ball on my hand I swung the ball toward him to see if the thumb would come out okay. Doing it this way you get to see if your ball hand stays behind and under the ball when the thumb releases as in an actual release. It hung up just a little so he took some kind of sander that had a little sanding disk on it and just hit the sides of the hole where the sides of my thumb would be. He said that peoples thumbs are not round so the hole is made more of an oval shape. I got back into the slide position and swung the ball toward him keeping my hand behind the ball and the thumb came out clean. He made it just a tad bigger because I told him my thumb swells up some and I use bowlers tape to make up the difference. Now whenever I bowl the thing I think about is a soft hold with the thumb before I make my approach. Now that I grip lightly with the thumb the ball comes off my hand faster and I get more revs without trying hard to do it and no thumb hangups.

[Ball99999]

I would do a couple things to get this straightened out. One have a pro shop check your thumb hole by putting the thumb in the hole without the fingers in and see if you can put your thumb in and out without it hanging up on the sides of your thumb. After that put your fingers in the ball first and then your thumb and see what happens when you try to get your thumb out. Have the pro shop check the pitch of your thumb hole. If this don't give you good results have a thumb slug put in your ball and have it redrilled for your thumb size and the right amount of pitch put in it. What my pro shop had me do when I had a thumb slug put in to resize my thumb hole we went into an empty carpeted room and he had me get into a position as if my slide foot hit the foul line and my balance leg was behind me. Then with the ball on my hand I swung the ball toward him to see if the thumb would come out okay. Doing it this way you get to see if your ball hand stays behind and under the ball when the thumb releases as in an actual release. It hung up just a little so he took some kind of sander that had a little sanding disk on it and just hit the sides of the hole where the sides of my thumb would be. He said that peoples thumbs are not round so the hole is made more of an oval shape. I got back into the slide position and swung the ball toward him keeping my hand behind the ball and the thumb came out clean. He made it just a tad bigger because I told him my thumb swells up some and I use bowlers tape to make up the difference. Now whenever I bowl the thing I think about is a soft hold with the thumb before I make my approach. Now that I grip lightly with the thumb the ball comes off my hand faster and I get more revs without trying hard to do it and no thumb hangups.

The problem turned out that I was putting enough tape in the ball to have zero grip pressure, as I thought was how it was supposed to be, but of course it would onto my thumb most of the time. Once I realized that I can have a proper release by actually having a loose thumbhole + grip pressure, so much clicked for me. I did have problems with my side knuckles though, so I dremeled a bit out on the sides.
The pitch is correct on my recent balls but my first ball had a pitch where the bottom of the hole was more pointed toward the fingertips so I ended up having to come out over a cliff and didn't have a clean release so I dremeled that down a bit too.