I have noticed that a few teams that are qualified for the City Championships are not only near the bottom of the standings, but are way behind the leaders. I recommend that you read section 6 on page 88 of the APA Official Team Manual where it explains that not playing your best or not trying to win can cause you to lose your eligibility for City Championships. Teams are not allowed to become qualified and then lay down (aka sandbagging, manipulating skill levels) in hopes of keeping skill levels down. Not only is it not allowed, you can be removed from the league for this behavior. Sandbagging of any kind or at any time is grounds for immediate suspension. Play your best every week and let the handicap system do its job. You will get much more enjoyment out of the league by doing this rather than attempting to cheat others out of a fair chance.
The best way to deter sandbagging or skill level manipulation is to make sure you have someone paying attention when score keeping. Your score keeper needs to know what a defensive shot is and to mark them in each instance that they believe there was no intent to make a ball. The last few words of the previous sentence is actually the definition of a defensive shot (aka safety, nonperformance shot). All you have to do when you aren’t sure if someone played a defensive shot is to ask yourself “was there any intent to pocket one of their object balls?” If you only hit hard enough to hit a rail with the ball having no chance to make it to a pocket, it’s considered a defensive shot. Picking up the cue ball because you don’t want to shoot anything on the table is a defensive shot, even if a shot wasn’t performed. There was no intent to pocket a ball, therefore it should be marked as a defensive shot. Defensive shots are important in scorekeeping to help with accuracy of skill levels. We need to know each and every time a player had no intent to make balls, as it will be calculated into the formula for determining skill levels. Players should actually inform both score keepers that they executed a safety to take the guesswork out of the equation.
We will have 51 teams representing San Diego in the Southwest Challenge Tournament at the Riviera Hotel next week. San Diego is currently the defending champion in both the 8 Ball and 9 ball events. We will post the rosters for all 51 teams very soon, if they aren’t posted already. Good luck to all of our teams!
I’d now like to express some concerns about the new players that get added to teams. Many of you know that you must make a new member to your team feel welcome and wanted, especially players that are fairly new to the game of pool. A lot of people don’t feel like they are good enough to play in a pool league, even if there is a handicap in place that helps them be able to compete. But, we see a lot of these people leave the league because some of our captains don’t fully comprehend the importance of making sure they feel comfortable and wanted on the very teams that asked them to play in the first place. You have to let these new players make their mistakes and not feel like they have let the team down. It seems like it’s always the same handful of captains that are always looking for new skill level 3’s. 
It is much easier to hang onto the one you just signed up if you look for ways to make them feel more like part of the team when they miss a shot or lose a match by being a little more forgiving. How you and your teammates conduct yourselves in front of these new players has much more impact on their fun meter than winning a match or making a difficult shot. Teach them how to relax and have fun and let them play against players that are equal to them in ability. Showing them a little encouragement when they lose also goes a long way towards their overall enjoyment in the league.