Milo-Thanks for the link/info, but I'm still a bit unclear on a couple of things. Are you saying that the Gamebreaker was illegal the whole time, or are you referring to the point in time when these new limits were put into place? I think I was there when those specs were put on the books, and the policy stated that balls produced prior to the deadline would be grandfathered, but all runs after that must conform to the new numbers. Are you trying to say that you are under the impression that USBC allowed Ebonite to keep making Gamebreakers outside of the specs AFTER the rule was put into place? If that's the case, that's news to me.
Now, back to the Jackal and Carnage, I agree with many of you that 99.9% of bowlers would be incapable of seeing (or exploiting) any discernible advantage from using one of these non-conforming balls. With that being said, why have rules/limits if you're not going to enforce them? Plus, as I stated earlier, even though most of us know that there is unlikely to be any true advantage gained by using one of these balls, can you imagine the whining and crying that we'd hear any time somebody used them to shoot an honor score or win a league or tournament?
I'm a bowler, and I have many bowling friends, but bowlers are HUGE hypocrites. Lane conditions are only too easy when bowers we view as being lesser than us score well; we never complain when WE put up the big numbers. Likewise, bowlers who have these balls in their bags right now will likely cry foul that they are being punished due to a manufacturer's mistake, and, to a point, I agree; however, many of those same bowlers would go ape if someone used one of those balls to beat them, and who could blame them? USBC can't knowingly allow a known non-conforming ball to be used in competition. That would make zero sense.
My comments regarding Motiv bending over backwards (as they may be attempting to do) were not meant to imply that this whole thing could be resolved quickly and easily. My point was simply to illustrate that THEY need to be the ones working to help bowlers through this; that's not USBC's job. If it was shown that these balls were always illegal and USBC screwed up during the testing process or something, then I would say that was USBC's fault for messing up the certification process. That doesn't sound like the case here. It sounds like the test balls passed, and future runs did not. How and why that is the case is a matter of conjecture, but, again, in the end, it's up to the manufacturers to make sure their equipment meets the posted guidelines. If they don't do that, it's not on USBC to appease ticked off bowlers; it's up to the company that made the mistake.
Morpheus, you keep mentioning this Sweden situation. I'm not familiar with that, so feel free to shed some light on what happened there if you feel like that's truly a good example to support your point of view.
