sandbagging

[Shaneshu87]

be honest have you ever done it? i will step up and admit that the last league i bowled in my whole team, easily 200+ average bowlers, got wasted drunk and set 130 averages to maximize on handicap, we then took turns rotating games to ensure we would always win, while everyone else bowled as close as possible to average to maintain low averages. lol anyone ever go this far, and PS our team name that year was "Sandbaggers" no joke we had shirts that said "big balls aint the only thing in our bag!"

[Aslan]

Uh oh. This is going to get ugly REAL quick.

Shane...all I'll say in an attempt to "try" and throw you a bone...is I think many people might not bowl up to their highest potential in week 1 of leagues. I learned my lesson in my 2nd ever league bowling my highest series ever (at that time). Made for a rough 5-6 weeks.

BUT...and I'm sure you'll get this from others...(getting lawn chair and popcorn for Iceman's comments)...no...throwing games intentionally and taking nights off and just outright not bowling your best in some attempt to win a trophy or money is so "not cool"...that I can't really think of a "less cool" thing that doesn't involve poison and a teammates drink or tackling an opponent on the approach. If you resort to that and win...what have you really won?? It's like beating up a 4th grader and then bragging about how tough you are. I mean...it's cheating. Is cheating cool? No, not really. And if I owned a center and I knew teams were doing it...I'd prefer not to have their business...because if they'd resort to that to win a trohpy...what other horrible things would they do to get what they want??

Recently the league I am in had to change their handicap policy to use book averages for all players new to the center. Apparently a player from another center came in last season, sandbagged the entire season, then cleaned up and won $800+ in sweeps. Not only is that not "cool"...it's "cheating"...and it's "stealing". And in certain circles...certain areas...it's the kind of behavior that people have been know to get beat up for. Woody Harrelson's character in Kingpin lost a hand over that kind of thing. As was mentioned in the song about Bad, bad Leroy Brown...."you gotta be careful hustlin folks strange to you."

[Shaneshu87]

hahaha to be somewhat fair it was in my young(er) and dumb(er) days, and we felt a little angry at the league from the previous season since it was handicap that gipped us out of first, the 2nd place team had averages of around 150, 3 of them shot 700's and the others shot 600's, we tried to call for a scratch tie breaker but they wouldn't have it. so we took justice into our own hands, and this was just in one league. and the last time i done it

[Shaneshu87]

Uh oh. This is going to get ugly REAL quick.

As was mentioned in the song about Bad, bad Leroy Brown...."you gotta be careful hustlin folks strange to you."

hahaha the writer of Leroy Brown is from my home town of Marshall, IL! his younger brother and my grandfather were in the same class

[Amyers]

I bowl a win lose or draw league with randomly selected opponents and teammates each week I will admit that I don't bowl any better in that league than it takes to win my individual point and team point each game if I'm way out in front I'm not saying I start tossing them in the gutter but I don't obsess about the spares the way I normally do. If this would be considered sandbagging then yes I've done it. Now I have never bowled poorly on purpose the first week or couple to set a lower average.

My regular team leagues I don't so this. I guess it feel okay since that one is more individual instead of team based.

[Shaneshu87]

i just hate how handicap is supposed to make every bowler equal. and everyone has that team they just hate to bowl because the have 400+ pins of handicap and you only get 23 pins, then they show up and bowl 50 pins over their average and you get swept lol

[ALazySavage]

I understand the frustration of bowling against teams that have massive amounts of handicap and then you have the 130 bowler shoot 190, but that is just like the 200 bowler shooting 257.

The thing that people must realize is that since most handicap leagues do either a 90% or 80% basis you are given an inherent advantage...5 man teams @ 90% of 220.... 23 pin handicap would be from a team average of 1,075 (assuming no one is above the 220 average mark) while the 400 pin handicap would be from a team average of 656. Making a handicap totals of 1,098 (2 pin penalty for being under 1,100) for the higher average team and 1,056 for the lower team (a 44 pin penalty for being under 1,100). If you have bowlers over the 220 average you have a bowler that essentially gets a handicap bonus; 228 bowler can bowl a 220 in this scenario and there is no penalty.

In this specific situation you did this as retaliation because of what you perceived as an unfair handicap situation that caused you to get 2nd instead of 1st, we can assume that this situation didn't cause you to lose every week or you wouldn't be second. Essentially what you did was not just sandbag against that one team but the entire league and I'm going to assume you bowled sweeper week with these sandbagged averages which again screws the rest of league. I just can't think of a situation that this makes sense; either you are bowling in a high money league (which I can't picture if there is that much handicap) or you sandbagged in order to take first place in a mom-and-pops house league.

[Shaneshu87]

I understand the frustration of bowling against teams that have massive amounts of handicap and then you have the 130 bowler shoot 190, but that is just like the 200 bowler shooting 257.

or you sandbagged in order to take first place in a mom-and-pops house league.

nailed it! lol as i said it was not our only league so none of us went to state with our sand bagged averages this was indeed a mom-n-pop wood lane house with 8 teams and we were sick of the drama, and pretty sure the second place team that beat us the year before were doing precisely what we were doing the year after we were beat. was it dirty? yeah. did it hurt anybody? no. eventually our actual averages caught up and we had to win the proper way, but this time that second place team was shut out and could root us out of 1st. we won a whopping $500 team prize lol totaly worth it

[RobLV1]

A few years ago the USBC did a study of all leagues accross the country and concluded that it would take a handicap of 116% of the average of the highest bowler in the league to actually result in equity between high average bowlers and low average bowlers. High average bowlers always have the advantage. That being said, I think that the idea of sandbagging is despicable. It is cheating, plain and simple, regardless of the petty excuses that bowlers come up with to justify doing it, ie., others have done it to me so I'm going to do it to them first. I have never sandbagged. I would never consider sandbagging, and I have absolutely no respect for anyone who does, for whatever reason.

[rv driver]

Uh oh. This is going to get ugly REAL quick.

Shane...all I'll say in an attempt to "try" and throw you a bone...is I think many people might not bowl up to their highest potential in week 1 of leagues. I learned my lesson in my 2nd ever league bowling my highest series ever (at that time). Made for a rough 5-6 weeks.

BUT...and I'm sure you'll get this from others...(getting lawn chair and popcorn for Iceman's comments)...no...throwing games intentionally and taking nights off and just outright not bowling your best in some attempt to win a trophy or money is so "not cool"...that I can't really think of a "less cool" thing that doesn't involve poison and a teammates drink or tackling an opponent on the approach. If you resort to that and win...what have you really won?? It's like beating up a 4th grader and then bragging about how tough you are. I mean...it's cheating. Is cheating cool? No, not really. And if I owned a center and I knew teams were doing it...I'd prefer not to have their business...because if they'd resort to that to win a trohpy...what other horrible things would they do to get what they want??

Recently the league I am in had to change their handicap policy to use book averages for all players new to the center. Apparently a player from another center came in last season, sandbagged the entire season, then cleaned up and won $800+ in sweeps. Not only is that not "cool"...it's "cheating"...and it's "stealing". And in certain circles...certain areas...it's the kind of behavior that people have been know to get beat up for. Woody Harrelson's character in Kingpin lost a hand over that kind of thing. As was mentioned in the song about Bad, bad Leroy Brown...."you gotta be careful hustlin folks strange to you."

"Do you really win?" In this type of "strategy" (and I use that term very broadly), you're competing against numbers, not self, not people, not other teams -- not even pins or lane conditions. You're skewing numbers. Period. In most circles, that's not called "bowling," it's called "cooking the books."