Friday - May 04, 2012

In A League Of Their Own

Both Greed League and Cheap League finished this week. I get a whole week to relax before summer league begins. I’m going to spend that time trying to strengthen my release and to work on my corner game with a new lighter spare ball. I’ve got one that’s a full 16lb, and it weighs a ton in my hand. Not necessary; spare shooting is about precision, not power. A 14 or 15lb ball would be easier to throw and easier to control. And I can get one new for something like $50, drilled to fit my hand.

Talk about differences between leagues.

Greed League is all about the money, and everything else goes by the sideboard. We had more than 14 300 games bowled in that league this year. Not a word. Something like $37,000 flowed through their coffers this year, but no accounting statement was put forth. And the treasurer seemed almost offended that anyone would ask what the prize amounts were ... after all, everyone voted on the approximate amounts back in August, at which point the papers with the amounts on them were collected as the votes. So why are you asking now you troublemaker? Hardly a bit of applause for anyone, each team just came up to the counter to collect it’s envelope, split the money up to the team members, and left. Bunch of dead eyed fish. But I did manage to find out that the 1st place winners turned a profit, taking $130 more in prize money than they had paid in all year. Our team finished 3rd, and our payout was nearly half of our dues paid in. Huge money. In a league of 8 teams, last place got a lousy $60 per man, only a 15th of what 1st raked in.  Savage. Gosh, and they wonder why it’s so hard for them to keep teams year after year!

Cheap League is all about the fun. And just a tiny bit about the money. The weekly dues are only 65% of Greed League’s, the league officers don’t get paid diddly for their efforts, and most of the prize money gets rolled back in for weekly cash games and semi-annual parties. Last week was the end of the actual competition, so this week it was party time. And it rocked! We had a night of no-tap bowling, the kind little kids and raw beginners do, and it was a blast. They put colored pins into the mix, and if you got a real strike when the headpin was a colored one you won a free game ticket. And if you didn’t strike, you got to pick something from the grab bag. I totally lucked out and had the colored pin about a dozen times, so I now have a fistful of free game cards and a collection of dollar store toys and games. And the folks who work at M&M Mars around the corner brought in gift boxes for each team with about two dozen various snacks and candy bars inside. And homemade white chocolate bowling themed lollipops. And we had a massive catered buffet with slightly open bar, with enough leftover food so that everyone took home dinner for four. Awesomeness! Then we held a proper league meeting to give out the small cash prizes, and the USBC awards, and nice trophies, and even toilet paper to those lucky “111” bowlers ( a 111 is the “outhouse” score, a little razzie that you try not to bowl. But sometimes you have a bad night and do so anyway. None for me this year!) Our secretary gave everyone a printout of all their scores, and our treasurer handed out a printed full financial disclosure that showed every dollar that came in and how it was spent, including what prize money went to each place. That’s how it’s supposed to be, right out of the USBC rulebook. I couldn’t ask for a better ending to a season. Our 4th place cash prize was $35 per person. Who cares? I got mini Chinese Checkers, Laptop Putting Golf, a squeeze ball, and a whole box full of Snack-ums.

I now have an ally against the massively disproportionate payouts in Greed League. Our new team member J is a superb bowler, smart as a whip, and a great big mofo at 6’5” 275lb. He’s been in bowling leagues since he was a kid, and he’s never seen anything like this. So he WILL have his say in the fall and he will be listened too. And then I’ll dip my little oar in the water Rodney King style, let’s all get along, fair is what the majority of us decide on, let’s form a committee, agree on goals, etc. Meanwhile, I’m almost done with a new version of my prize calculator spreadsheet. This one does cash increments between places, and is built so that you can enter your goals (1st place gets $X, 2nd gets $Y, 3rd gets $Z) and then parses out the rest of the money evenly. It adapts to as many prize goals as you want to have, and highlights the lower position payouts if things are imbalanced past a certain level of “fair”. I just have to figure out the base slice algorithm with a calculated cut counter. Right now I’m using the Excel CHOOSE function, which works but is not really elegant. Once a programmer, always a programmer. And I’m full of ideas.

Posted by Drew458     on 05/04/2012 at 02:30 PM   
Filed Under: • Bowling Blogging •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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