When I bowled Juniors back in the mid-late 90's, when I bought my first urethane ball (Gyro II), it came sanded at about 360 grit, and was made for "medium to heavy oil."  Same thing with a few other balls at the time.  The Black Shadow was one, the Blue and Burgundy hammers were also that way.  In fact, I remember vividly that I was thinking about buying a resin ball and the pro-shop guy said, "Resin needs dry to hook" and went on to say that on very oily conditions the resin will give too inconsistent of a reaction.  Bear in mind the resins he's talking about weren't the Excalibur.  We're talking about the Nitro/R2, Code Red, Piranha, and Quantum!

With all the talk of ball surface changing, it got me to thinking.  I haven't seen a urethane ball sanded that coarsely in YEARS.  The Black Messenger is only at about a 800 grit sand.  The Black Scout is, what, about 600?  

What I'm getting at, is that nowadays, "urethane balls don't hook."  I'm wondering, is the box finish on urethane balls now intentionally kept not as coarse in order to sell the reactives, which "are supposed to hook"?

I've seen that even on the heavier oil seen now, that a good coarse-sanded Blue or Burgundy WILL hook as much as resin or even some of the lower-load particles!
There are probably 15 urethane Hammers out of ten 5-man teams in my Monday night league and we see more oil than anywhere in at least this city!
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Just once I'd like to show up at a place with the lanes FLOODED 45 feet down and flat.  That way I can watch these crankers struggle to find the pocket and leave splits while I come straight off the corner and do nothing but make 4 pins and 10 pins all night.