Back at the beginning of this thread a question was posed to Shivas by Michael Moore and it was:
What about players who line up the seam of the ball with the intended line of play? Are they perpetrating some sort of violation?
Shivas' reply:
This is a violation of the spirit, but not the letter, because there is no "mark" being placed.
This should help to illustrate the intransigent position taken by him on this subject. By his reasoning you don't even have to have a mark of any type on the ball to be in violation of the spirit of the rule, the game, or both. Just using the seam will earn you demerits in Dave's world. Heck, never mind the seam, I just rummaged through some 'jar' balls I have on the counter and I find straight lines that aren't seams, along with series of dimples that also run in straight lines, on every ball I looked at.
Therefore, by his puritanical and rigid approach, anyone using a 'line' of any sort found on the ball to help w/alignment would be guilty of, at least, a 'spiritual' infraction.
But, it's easy to see why he has to take the position that using a seam is a 'spiritual' offense, one that parallels the use of a line or trademark, i.e, any further argument would lose its premise.
Actually, it probably isn't over, it's possible that some 'new' reason will be 'created' by him to continue his argument. That wouldn't be shocking.