Hey Guys, a lot of times a player does not realize they have committed a foul. So you just can not blanketly say it is unsportsmanlike conduct to not call a foul upon yourself.
I seen a pro match, and one of the guys is a real prominent pro OP member, and he really pushed through a close object ball close to his pocket and forced the ob and cb to fly into the opponents balls by his pocket. The commentators did not say a word and the opponent did not say a word, an obvious blatant foul, call it with brail.
Say a ball does not hit a rail, but you can not tell, or in OP your main attention is what your trying to accomplish getting the balls to do what you want them to do, and not really paying attention to if you hit a rail or not.
I seen Skylar Woodward playing a guy, and he had him so he had to kick at a ball on the rail, well the cue ball hit the rail before the ob, Skylar could a foul, but the guy argued and Skylar gave in. He should of called for a ref. he ended up losing.
Many players do not know the rules of close proximity hits, and many times they do not think they did an illegal hit or stroke. This gets real complicated when the player elevates their cue. In team competition BCAPL an opponent elevated their and we call a ref. the ref. called a foul, and the guy said but I elevated my cue! DCC now has it so if you elevate your cue it is not a foul even if you do foul.
I was playing this guy in a BCAPL tournament and I verbally called a bank and also pointed to the hole. I did the bank, and he yelled at me, you have to call it. He was screwing around the whole match and not watching the game. It was a mini tournament, and I said it is not worth playing you, and quit.
I was in team BCAPL 9-ball, broke the balls and made the classical 1 ball in the side, and my opponent said I did not hit the head ball on the break. He honestly thought and I honestly believed he thought that, it took 5 min. and finally his own team mates said I hit the head ball. He wanted to win so bad he seen something that did not happen.
So how do you know a guy committed a foul, if as the opponent you did not watch and did not call a foul, and if you are watching and do not call a foul, but you think it is a foul, then do you think the opponent is unsportsmanlike for not calling it on their self.
This happened to me on a split hit. My opponent thought I hit my ball first, he did not call a foul, and I then shot in the 8 and won. Boy, was he mad, he slap my hand instead of shaking it, and I could not figure out what was wrong. Well his team mates and others explained to him that it was not a foul, buy the way his ob went.
So how can one make a blanket assertion that it is unsportsmanlike to not call a foul upon yourself. Whitey