after watching the world swimming champs and seeing 45 world records broken i was thinking what does everyone think about the records ??? lots of the old swimmers want the records rubbed out , i saw Micheal Phelps coach calling for him not to swim against people wearing the new suits.
Swimming world records
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jason_doust
The Bowling Geek
I didn't vote. The swimming world records could stand as an "equipment assisted" category, just as Del Warren (I think) suggested that reactive resin records could stand in our sport. They would be respected for what they are. Great achievements with performance enhancing equipment. Like the idea of the "Steroid Games". Just let everyone become super-human on chemicals and see what happens!
I was in Indianapolis at the 1992 Touring Players Championship (spectating a week out from my first event in Rochester) when the Touring Players voted to ban reactive resin from the PBA Tour. Only one player voted in favour of reactive resin. (He'd won two titles since it came out. One with an X-calibur and the other with a new ball by High Score Products, called the Storm.)
A couple of hours later, the ball reps called all the players back in to advise them that they had better overturn their decision or find other companies to put $4M into their tour. They played hard ball on what were known as the "Cheater-Balls". Those "Cheater-Balls" balls go straight compared to what's around now.
To illustrate how much extra friction reactive balls generate without any additional help from us, wood bowling lanes used to have an expected life of 80 years before reactive balls came along and pretty much destroyed them all in the last decade.
Golf, Tennis and now Swimming have reigned things in for the integrity of their sports. But they aren't as dependent on industry support. Golf courses, tennis courts and swimming pools are available as public facilities. Unless we start building bowling clubs, we can expect nothing to be done to restore the integrity of our game so far as equipment goes. But I am surprised that the BPAA sat back and did nothing to protect their member's investment in lanes.
I was in Indianapolis at the 1992 Touring Players Championship (spectating a week out from my first event in Rochester) when the Touring Players voted to ban reactive resin from the PBA Tour. Only one player voted in favour of reactive resin. (He'd won two titles since it came out. One with an X-calibur and the other with a new ball by High Score Products, called the Storm.)
A couple of hours later, the ball reps called all the players back in to advise them that they had better overturn their decision or find other companies to put $4M into their tour. They played hard ball on what were known as the "Cheater-Balls". Those "Cheater-Balls" balls go straight compared to what's around now.
To illustrate how much extra friction reactive balls generate without any additional help from us, wood bowling lanes used to have an expected life of 80 years before reactive balls came along and pretty much destroyed them all in the last decade.
Golf, Tennis and now Swimming have reigned things in for the integrity of their sports. But they aren't as dependent on industry support. Golf courses, tennis courts and swimming pools are available as public facilities. Unless we start building bowling clubs, we can expect nothing to be done to restore the integrity of our game so far as equipment goes. But I am surprised that the BPAA sat back and did nothing to protect their member's investment in lanes.
jason_doust
The Bowling Geek
Correct. Except that players must throw reactive bowling balls on blocked lanes weakly to score these days or face serious over reaction.
Swimming still rewards maximum athletic effort. Bowling penalises it.
jason_doust
The Bowling Geek
Quite possibly, Adrian. I don't know.
But that said, plastic to urethane was an incremental change. Urethane to reactive balls were a quantum leap in ball trajectory and number of boards covered. Also the ability to use high friction covers with the same cores to get a players track off the thumb hole and make previoulsy ineffective releases very powerful certainly had a few people asking "It's great that we can do this, but is it right or fair?"
I still remember people laughing at me in 1992 when I predicted that a guy named Walter Ray Williams would be PBA Player of the Year in 1993.
But that said, plastic to urethane was an incremental change. Urethane to reactive balls were a quantum leap in ball trajectory and number of boards covered. Also the ability to use high friction covers with the same cores to get a players track off the thumb hole and make previoulsy ineffective releases very powerful certainly had a few people asking "It's great that we can do this, but is it right or fair?"
I still remember people laughing at me in 1992 when I predicted that a guy named Walter Ray Williams would be PBA Player of the Year in 1993.
