MMSTL - Inner-League Events
THE SINGLES LEAGUE
The Singles League was actually a league-within-a-league that was enlisted in the MMSTL in the 1996-1997 season. It was popularized a few years earlier by MMSTL member, Fariley Poore, who ran a Singles League within one of his mixed leagues at Fair Lanes Prince Georges. The league operated under the principle of using the league scores from the regular league in which a player bowled, along with each player being assigned an ID number that corresponded to a separate schedule for establishing a weekly opponent. So, you'd bowl your normal league scores, and just keep track of your opponent's score to determine if you won or lost at the end of each game. The brilliance of Fariley's idea was that when you paid your weekly fee of $5.00, all of it went into the Singles League prize fund, so there were no bowling center lineage fees with which to be hampered.
The Travel League's robust league membership totals were a natural for enabling a sizable Singles league prize fund. In the first year of the MMSTL's employment of a Singles League, there were 76 entrants, which allowed for the use of 2 divisions. The 76 bowlers were sorted from highest average to lowest, and from this list, players were alternately placed in Division A or Division B. So, for example, the highest bowler was in Division A, and then the 2nd highest was in Division B. Then, 3rd highest was in Division A, and 4th highest in Division B, and so on. This made for an even balance between the two groups, who were competing for equal prize funds -- $1,000.00 for 1st place in each division. The "Division" system worked well for the 10 years that spanned from 1996-1997 to 2005-2006. One year, there was even a 4-Division allocation, with 122 participants of the 130 MMSTL members. The main reason for the increase in participation was that after the first year of the Singles league, which operated under 80% handicap from a base score of 160, the league went to 100% handicap, thus eliminating the advantage that previously was going to the higher average players. There were some grumblings from some of the 'big averages' when the change occurred, in which they declared they wouldn't bowl at 100% handicap, but as it turned out, more of the lower average players were added to the Singles than the number of lost high-averaged players. Ultimately, the majority of those higher bowlers 'bit the bullet', so to speak, and re-joined the Singles league. One of the added benefits of bowling in the Singles league was that all participants were eligible to compete (for free) in the year-end "Big 32" event, held on Payoff Night, in which an extra $500.00 was the top prize.
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TRAVEL LEAGUE OPEN
The way it worked was that each bowler received handicap based on his current average from, for example, Week 7. This first week of the tournament was a qualifying round in which the top (32) scores with handicap would advance to a bracket round, with Seed #1 bowling against Seed #32, #2 vs. #31, and so on. Week 8 was the 1st round of the actual bracket competition, and the players would simply use their scores (3-game set with handicap) from the normal league play against their opponents to determine winners and losers in the event's 1st competition week. Then, Week 9 was the 2nd round, and so on until the final week in which 2 bowlers competed for the championship.
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THE BIG 32, a/k/a SWEET 16, a/k/a ELITE 8
This was the year-end event for the Singles League, held on Payoff Night. It operated under the same format as the Travel League Open, in which a bracket format was used. The tournament was Open only to those MMSTL bowlers who were members of the Singles League. A separate prize fund was established throughout the year from the weekly Singles League fee. In a 38-week season, Week 37 was used as the qualifying round to establish the top 32 players, who would advance to the Payoff Night bracket, based on the 3-game sets with handicap from Week 37. Week 38 was used as a tiebreaker, if necessary. Everyone who made the bracket round got paid, and the overall winner usually won $500.00. A series of "alternates" were established from those who narrowly missed making the top 32 on Week 37. In case there were "No-Shows" on Payoff Night, the alternates would fill those empty spots.
In the first year of the Singles League (1996-1997), the tournament was called the 'Elite 8', since the idea for the event was originated during the year, to give those who might have been down in the standings of the Singles divisions, a chance to earn extra money at the end of the year. First place in the Elite 8 won $100.00. In the next 2 seasons, the Elite 8 became a 'Sweet 16', and by the 4th year, 32 players made it to the brackets.
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THE ELIMINATOR
The Eliminator was a tournament that was simple in concept. The tournament costed $5.00 to enter. On a game-by-game basis, if you bowled 10 pins under your current average from the weekly sheet/booklet, you were eliminated from the tournament. It usually took about 11 games to achieve an ultimate winner, so the idea was like a "Last Man Standing" tourney. This tournament seemed to be equally popular as the others that were run, in that as soon as the tournament was complete, there'd be immediate requests in which the bowlers would ask when the next Eliminator would be. Since the tournament normally would run for around 4 weeks, it was pretty easy to establish a prize fund that projected several places to be paid. The tournament would usually start in the 2nd game of the opening night, to allow those who were late for bowling a chance to enter the event.
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THE SHOOTER
This tournament ran over the course of 2 weeks in the Travel League, around Christmas time. It was a handicap tournament that costed $10.00, and you could re-enter in the 2nd week. The format was based on 80% handicap added to your 3-game set for a week.
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