We here at GutterAlley are always dreaming up goofy ways to utilize the huge stockpile of bowling score data we have collected over the better part of the last decade. Things such as the Most Valuable Bowler and the #1 Power Ranking have come about due to these brainstorming sessions. Well, here's our latest offering -- The Over/Under Factor.Born out of a debate based upon the outcome of the Spring 2009 season – in which the eventual championship team was gifted more wins than they actually earned – the eventual end product is what we're debuting today. Basically, we've come up with a pretty sound and extremely simple equation that figures out if your team truly earned the victories you've racked up or if the other team performed so poorly that the win was handed to you in an act of charity.The easiest way to put it? If your team doesn't bowl your team average and yet you still win the game, odds are that it's going to be a charity win. After testing and fully applying The Over/Under Factor retroactively throughout every season that we have data, we came across some interesting facts:

The first team to be handed all four games was D-Day, gifted the wins by the Canned Crabs on Week 14 in the Spring 2003 season. D-Day would go on to win the championship that season by one game.The all-time record for most charity wins for a team in a single season is 18 games - by two different teams - in the same season! Ground Zero Mosque and Feed the Monkey both had 18 games handed to them.The top five bowlers in league history to have been on teams that were gifted wins are, in order: Ken M. Wilson, Dennis "Pops" Laube, Scott Murdock, Carl Goetz, and Phil Schroeder.Seven teams have earned 50% or more of their season wins via charity.Most legitimate wins in a full 16-week season? Fall 2009's Sweep the Leg, Johnny with 40 wins.So he's won 11 championship titles, right? Truly, Ken M. Wilson has only earned 8 of them – having picked up three of them during charity seasons. Carl Goetz, David Codding, and Scott Murdock trail him with two gifted titles apiece.Bowlers that were cheated out of the most titles due to charity runs by other teams? It's a 4-way tie with two apiece for Dennis "Pops" Laube, Janelle (Laube) Lamar, Jason Carpio, and Thomas Lin.In the 17 seasons that we have records for, five of those seasons ended with a charity champion (Spring 2003, Fall 2003, Spring 2004, Fall 2006, and Spring 2009).

When you visit The Over/Under Factor on the site, you'll be shown the individual results from each matchup. You can then see if each individual game was a legitimate win, a tie, or a charity win. At the bottom of the page, you'll see a chart like this:What this shows is which team has received the most charity wins for that particular season – as of today, it's Scoot's Gutterballs team with THIRTEEN unearned wins – and then show where the standings would lie if the charity wins were factored out. Using the Gutterballs again, even though the actual standings have them in 5th place if you subtract out their charity wins they should be in 7th place. Interesting, eh?So, with that, we're happy to unleash The Over/Under Factor. Check it out!