Rule Question - Match Play, absentee vs. BLIND

[Frank Goebel]

Here's a situation I could not see specifically defined in the USBC rule book.

We had a no-show situation on the first night and the team never formed, placing us in a Blind situation. Three were present on the team that was scheduled against the Blind and points were awarded on the bowlers bowling scores within 10 pins of their entering (book) averages.

With their one absentee, they recorded losses for that slot. BLS recorded wins. These "wins" were points given to the team, but not to the absent bowler. Personally, I can't see how a win can be awarded to an absentee's slot, but if that's the end ruling, so be it.

It must be noted that the absentee score is average minus ten pins, which is also the score that a bowler, being present, must bowl for a win. USBC allows for no ties in this situation.

While I'm going to contact my association, I'm doing a poll here. If a legal but incomplete lineup is present against a Blind, what should happen? This is not a quiz, but rather an interpretation of existing rules.

1. Award a loss to the absent bowler's slot
2. Award a tie to the absent bowler's slot
3. Award a win to the absent bowler's slot

It's earlier than 8 AM Eastern time; I know that many of my west coast colleagues will be up far later than I will tonight and I invite as much commentary and input as you would like to offer, and others to observe what's posted. If you're observing, please come back to this thread as there may be updates or furhter postings so you'll be informed for the future.

I will follow up and conclude with the ending determination. If you've gone through this sort of situation, and know what an association or National ruling would be, by all means indicate that.

Thank you all in advance for your input.

[Patrick Lajko]

Are you referring to a VANCANCY? "Blind" always used to refer to an absent bowler. In your context, I believe you are talking about an absentee.vs.vacant.
Unfortunately, no one has ever told US whet they do for absent.vs. vacant. No one ever thinks of putting that in their bylaws.

I hope we can find out what to do.

[John Lorenzo]

Our bylaws state when absent vs vacant, the winning team gets the point.

[Frank Goebel]

Our bylaws state when absent vs vacant, the winning team gets the point.

Your bylaw reflects the spirit of USBC rule 100k, paragraph 4. As usual, there's a sentence "Match point leagues must follow these rules, unless the league has adopted a different procedure". The paragraph addresses situations where two opposing teams have one absent and/or vacancy bowler. They are to be placed opposite each other, and the remaining bowlers paired up, live bowler against live bowler, with the team winning the game also winning the point for absentee/vacancy.

More on that later, as I will address Patrick's question next:

Are you referring to a VANCANCY? "Blind" always used to refer to an absent bowler. In your context, I believe you are talking about an absentee.vs.vacant.
Unfortunately, no one has ever told US whet they do for absent.vs. vacant. No one ever thinks of putting that in their bylaws.

I hope we can find out what to do.

I called my association manager, and we discussed it for a bit. We discussed pros and cons, and neither of us really argued for a resolution we wanted, we just weighed what would be the outcome of the various possibilities. He did say something about that same rule, though.

I will digress briefly about the Paragraph 4, aforementioned: My league falls under the "league adopts a different procedure" in that we are forced to line up, low to high average, and the vacancy score is placed where it would fall in the lineup. So, a blind vs. blind situation would only occur if the averages called for it, and we have adopted to split points there. BLS does allow for that option, it's not an issue here.

But, this is a different situation, in that there's an absentee (on a team fielding a legal, but less than full, lineup) and how points should be awarded with either a known forfeit (in this case, not a legal lineup) or a BLIND situation (uneven number of teams).

My association manager suggested I give the rules department at USBC a call, and after a few minutes, I had a rules counselor? I don't recall the term they used for the posistion...on the line with me. I explained the situation at hand, and was wondering how to handle points, when he mentioned the notion of awarding the points based on whether the team won its point. I did mention that I didn't see the specific situation covered in the rules (codified) or mentioned anywhere in the Commonly Asked Questions (CAQ) (defined and applied). It took me some time to re-locate the rule, 100k, but we did conclude, after several minutes of researching the rule book (Pat - I did get my paper copy last night!).

We concluded that the best resolution would be to apply 100k, Paragraph 4, to this situation. It means that the points can be either won or lost (unearned), and it's the team that ultimately earns or fails to earn the points, each game, and for the total if applicable.

I then asked about the ability to put in a modification to the rules for next season, and the response led to how some things are modified for clarification without the full rules amendment process (proposal, motion and second, at the national convention). The CAQs are also reviewed, and updated to include "new" issues and possibly drop those that aren't as frequent or obsolete. I suggested that they add a CAQ, if nothing else, regarding this.

I will also write to USBC Rules, based on the call today, about this. You might see something this in next year's rule book, and you saw it started here. I don't expect my name in the book, of course.

As for awarding points in this manner: I am fully comfortable with it, awarding the points for the absentee if the bowlers present on that team manage to bowl the required score, that is, the team average minus the appropriate number of pins, per league by-laws. I believe that the teams concerned would embrace it.

The rules counselor also did mention that CDE, and other software companies, frequently call them about how to handle various situations. It's just odd, that it seems as though this situation may have not been brought up before. Perhaps the points were awarded automatically, or charged as lossed (unearned), or split, at the whim of a secretary and, if unchallenged, would stand as awarded. Today, though, I challenged myself...and this is the result.

I will go back to week one and over-ride the points based on team scores for that one match, then apply the rule and over-ride points as necessary for the match (two different teams) as I process week two. That'll be a task for tomorrow. It's late in the Eastern time zone now....

[Skip Horner]

Quoting: "Unfortunately, no one has ever told US whet they do for absent.vs. vacant. No one ever thinks of putting that in their bylaws."

Ahem...

from my league's bylaws:

(b) When there is an absentee score, the individual match point will be awarded to the score that wins the point. All absentee scores shall be placed in their actual lineup position (see section a, above). If an absentee score bowls against another absentee score, that point shall be split between the teams.
(c) When bowling against a vacancy score, a bowler will need to bowl within 10 pins of his/her average to win the individual point, as opposed to beating the vacancy score.
(d) If an absentee score is bowling versus a vacancy score, that point shall be split between the teams.

We've had this in place for about 8 years now.

[Lance Rasmussen]

Skip,

do note that Bowling HQ is really trying to get leagues to change their rules dealing with "gimee" points. Its against the spirit of competition.

The suggested rule is that when an absent player is vs an abs or vacant player, then the team that wins the game earns the point for the player.

I was in a league for years that split the points. But we changed it to be in the spirit of competition.

[Skip Horner]

Lance, believe me, I try that every year when we vote on rules...

[mikewhite]

SKip

We had a similar rule in our match play scratch league until a player challenged it with ABC (ah ABC such fond memories). It was determined that the rule was illegal and any match points with an absent vs a vacant (blind) would go to the winning team. In instance of a vacant team or known forfiet if the team did not bowl within specified limits no points are awarded.

[Skip Horner]

YAY! Our league voted (upon "suggestion") to award the point to the winning team.

[Frank Goebel]

My league started last night after adopting three by-law changes that I had carefully written and presented. Thankfully the league as a whole respects me for the work I do (thanks, CDE, for the help) so that certainly doesn't hurt.

Our league's changes:

1. Under old rule, doing team lineups by average low to high: If there's one absentee on both teams, the bowlers lined up against said absentees would bowl against their averages. That would usually have a bowler on each team bowling against nobody else, why not against each other? So, the lineup would be altered to allow as many bowlers to be paired against each other, but still maintain sequence of bowling. I instructed the teams needing that rule to mark their recaps with "A" "B" "C" to next to bowler names to indicate who was really bowling against whom. Last season, my team and its opponent, both very low in standings in a position round, had a situation where the two leadoff bowlers were present on one team and the two anchors on the other. Four people bowling and they ALL were against their average and could have bowled against each other and made it meaningful...that's what motivated me to actually do it. And it went very well even when used on our first night.

2. Back to my original theme: When we do the lineup change, it essentially puts the absentees against each other. Now on occasion there would be a situation where the same lineup position were coincidentally absent, and I had split the points in past years. The simple change was to instead award the point to the team winning the game. Again, no "gimme" half-points, instead everything earned. As I described that change, I gave respect by naming the league member who suggested it to me.

3. Finally (and this some of you may find amazing that we did, but I had to continue something the league had done before it moved to my house and merged with a league that had just elected me secretary), instead of actually bowling against one's average, every situation was instead to compare the handicap score of the bowler present against the handicap score of the absent bowler (with ten points subtracted from the absent bowler's average). If averages were close, it was still up to the bowler to match his average minus ten, but in some cases with wide variances, it could be average minus eight, or minus twelve, depending (because of a 90% handicap). And the worst thing was when there was a vacancy: There wouldn't be ten pins subtracted from the vacancy score, so while it was a lower (175) average, a handicap score of 224, it could often require the bowler to meet his average minus maybe just one or two pins at best, or even zero if the average was close to 175 already. So the final change was to make it average minus ten regardless.

I won't say they were adopted unanimously, but there weren't any questions even posed. I guess I'd done a good job two weeks prior at the captain's meeting with the whole thing in writing (and nobody offered even the slightest challenge - they wanted to adopt it then but the president demanded it be brought up to the whole league). And a couple of captains who were themselves absent from that meeting, but still voted for it, took me aside afterward and mentioned that it was a very good and welcome change.

I only had one game over 160 last night but at least I went home knowing the league was going to be fine....

[Mark Voaklander]

Our league: Missing bowler gets 180. Be it absentee, vacant or blind.

[Skip Horner]

Also talked a league I'm "new" to into adopting the "winning team gets the point". Too bad the league meeting was run so poorly (and I was threatened!) that I almost don't want to bowl in that league.