negative attitudes on your team (LONG rant)

[crimsoneyes]

I bowl on a mixed doubles league and none of are very good. the girls are at about 120 and us guys have myself at 165 and the other at 169. The other guy bowls a couple other nights a week and holds 190 both night at a different house. For a few weeks he would complain about how terrible the house we bowl at is and how the other place has such better scores. Well I ended up chatting with the owner of the other house he bowls at and he told me that they switched patterns to promote higher scoring.

So the nest time the other guy on my team complained i flipped out on him and said that I could replace him in about 10 minutes and if he didn't wanna bowl with us to just say so. He hasnt said word since but the past 3 weeks he has been showing up to bowl **** drunk. He threw a 360 series last week.

I'm gonna tough it out this year and then my wife and i will find a new couple to bowl with for next year.

[billf]

My team is exactly like this. I have the 35 year old who was a 200 avg bowler in his 20s and can't do it anymore. He carries a 170 average, then gets extremely mad when he shoots his average.... Really frustrating.

Most bowlers don't hit their prime until their mid 30s or early 40s. Sounds more like he never really had it to lose but was rather the by-product if a high scoring oil pattern.

[Tampabaybob]

Crimson....... Yeah thats a tough position to be in. I've been in similar situations before and it makes the season seem much longer than it is. We just had a situation on our team with a guy not paying. Our league rules are, if a guy owes 3 weeks and doesn't pay up, he doesn't bowl until he does pay up. Our guy, and we didn't know at the beginning of the season, was unemployed. Not only that he was "bowling in 4 leagues!" Well, needless to say he doesn't bowl with us any longer. May people don't realize when they join a bowling team, that the league has to sign a contract that guarantees payment for each league bowler every night of the season and that it's a responsibility of each bowler to pay each night. It's a commitment, and people have to understand that.

[ArtVandelay]

Its funny because my team goes out of its way to not be serious (we named our team Bowl Job...) but we had some success and it does change things. Thankfully we were still laid back and never got upset or angry, but i did notice we started looking at other scores and calculating pins and probabilities... Now that we have slipped into 4th, theres a little disappointment but I think our priorities are in order...

Where abouts in DFW are you? Im north DFW, denton area. Shoot me a PM. I might be looking to pick up an extra league night this summer for practice. If you dont mind that Im crazy laid back and really dont care about most things, we might have to look into a team of some sort.

[ZRock]

Most bowlers don't hit their prime until their mid 30s or early 40s. Sounds more like he never really had it to lose but was rather the by-product if a high scoring oil pattern.

Why do you say this? I would imagine most people that average in the 200s with a heavy cranker style couldn't hold up once they hit mid 30s...

[billf]

Most crankers turn to tweeners and then enjoy their most successive years. Look at the ages of winners from regionals to majors the last 60 years. That's why I say it. It seems to be the point where the mental and physical games match. The physical drops slightly as the mental goes way up.

[ZRock]

Interesting point. Guess I should just quit for 15 years then come back then.

[J Anderson]

Interesting point. Guess I should just quit for 15 years then come back then.

Doesn't work that way. The 15 years of beating your head against the wall is part of the process. "You got to pay your dues if you want to sing the Blues", and you have to fail a few times to learn how to win.

[panbanger]

Well I saw a big improvement in attitude tonight. Before we even started we looked at the standings and they remarked at how they're used to being at the bottom of the list and that we're really doing good. We're in 4th place and about 10 games out of first. So we had a fun relaxing night. And we won 3 out of the 4 which was a nice bonus!

The worst part of the night is that I see that we're back on lanes 1-2 next week. That will be our 3rd trip to those lanes in the last 6 weeks! For some reason I dont like bowling on either the first or the last lane.

[unclemantis]

Well I saw a big improvement in attitude tonight. Before we even started we looked at the standings and they remarked at how they're used to being at the bottom of the list and that we're really doing good. We're in 4th place and about 10 games out of first. So we had a fun relaxing night. And we won 3 out of the 4 which was a nice bonus!

The worst part of the night is that I see that we're back on lanes 1-2 next week. That will be our 3rd trip to those lanes in the last 6 weeks! For some reason I dont like bowling on either the first or the last lane.

It's not you. There is just something about having a wall at one side that is.destracting.