This article originally appeared in the May 2013 USBF Western Sector Newsletter

From time to time rules are made to govern competition or other aspects of our federation’s endeavors.  Most of these rules are for the greater good of the organization and are widely accepted by the membership.  Sometimes rules just happen to pop up that have no logic or basis.  I like to call them “silly rules”.  A definition of silly rules might be a rule “that does not really exist” or “might not be enforced”.

The most common silly rule is one that is born on the bocce court during a game.  Sometimes a player will try to gain an advantage by citing a rule to his opponent that does not really exist in the rulebook.  This is usually done by a more experienced player when playing against a less experienced team and it is really a shame that players sometimes get away with it. An example of this occurred in late April at an open tournament.  A ball came into a court from an adjacent court after a shot but did not strike any balls and did no harm.  The ball was returned to the correct court and placed in the rack as a dead ball.  Play resumed on the court that the ball landed on.  After two balls were played one of the players on the court said that the frame is dead because “the rule” says that is so.  The opponents did not buy into the argument and play continued until the frame ended.  The perpetrator of the false rule is lucky that the issue died on the court because insisting on rules that do not exist is a violation of the USBF Code of Conduct!

Another silly rule is a rule that may not be enforced.  The best example of this is the series of new uniform requirements that seem to appear each year prior to the national tournament.  For the last several years there have been uniform requirements that state very boldly: “Failure to adhere to these standards will result in player/team disqualification”. The authors of these rules mean well but sometimes lack the strength to actually enforce the specific rule.  It is a hit and miss situation and is very difficult for the people running the tournament to understand.  One such rule requires matching shirts of the same color and style.  This is a good rule and has been in effect for many years.  Unfortunately, when a team has shown up with mismatched shirts they are sometimes allowed to play.  This happened in St. Louis in 2010.  The explanation given was that it would be a hardship on the team if they were disqualified because they were young and traveled a long way to get to the tournament.  In 2011 a team was allowed to purchase matching shirts from the host club to comply, but were allowed to use state flag decals instead of permanent embroidered flags on their sleeve since it would not have been possible to have the flags embroidered prior to starting the game.  No one wanted to disqualify the team.

Last year’s nationals held at the Alpine Country Club near Chicago had a rule that no shorts would be allowed for open and raffa competition.  The powers that be looked at the weather report and allowed shorts due to the temperatures that were forecasted to be in the high nineties with high humidity.  It might be really interesting to see how the new uniform rules will be enforced at this year’s national tournament in Stockton, CA, in June, during the hottest time of the year!

I guess the best silly rule would be one that states: “Don’t do this unless we change our minds and let you”.