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03 May 2010
Every sports fan has sat down in front of their TV ready to watch a big event and been disappointed. Be it basketball, baseball, football, or racing, at some point you've been into a game and then something happened (repeatedly in some cases) and you were just disgusted by the product you were witnessing. It's times like these that you scream in frustration, "I wish they'd just make a rule against blah blah blah!" Yeah, I fucking hate blahs too.
So why are all the major sports ran the way they have been for 50 or more years? I say to Hell with all that. Let's add some new rules.
Sport: Basketball. New rule: no flopping. Penalty: Technical foul.
We'll start with basketball. It is without a doubt one of the most interesting sports to watch. The action is generally up-and-down, teams can come back from major deficits, and the play is generally full of energy. What slows down games, changes the entire dynamic of the game, and disgusts me most about basketball is flopping.
Look, I'm a bit of a San Antonio Spurs fan. Have been since the Admiral was in charge down there (he and Duncan are the only reasons I'm a fan). Even I am sickened about 50% of the time watching Manu play though. Every other time he drives the lane he throws his arms in the air or his body on the ground and looks at the ref like he just got raped in Shawshank. It's ridiculous and it should be illegal. In fact, it should be assessed a technical foul in every level of basketball. No matter college, NBA, or junior pro, flopping should be a technical foul. None of this "A" and "B" shit either. You flop twice in the same game and you take your ass to the showers. Vlade Divac would have played about 7 minutes in his career if this were a rule. Also, see "soccer" and "yellow card assessed."
Read on for some more rule changes.
Sport: Baseball. New rule: no stepping out of the box. Penalty: Warning, followed by strikes assessed.
First off, I love baseball. Grubby and I have had many talks about why we enjoy the game and think it is phenomenal if you invest the time. The fundamental problem with baseball, especially in this day and age, is the sheer amount of time it takes to watch a game. Football and basketball are both roughly two hour events. Baseball is three on a good night and can drag on for upwards of four even without extra innings.
How do we speed up the game? Not by adding ridiculous pitcher clocks but by telling batters they can't step out of the box after every pitch. You feel like loosening your batting gloves and tightening them between every pitch? Go ahead, but Roy Halladay is about to bring a fastball across the outside corner while you're trying to get that "Rawlings" symbol back in the right place. I would change the rules for batters to state that you get to call one timeout per at bat to step out of the box.
If you need to do that to settle down when it's a 1-2 count, fine. Need to check with your third base coach? Better save that TO. Of course you're allowed to leave the box on a foul ball but leave it on a regular taken pitch and you're given a warning. Repeat the offense (in the game) and the ump tacks on a strike to the count. I don't care if it's your third one, keep your ass in the box!
Sport: Football. New rule: remove the QB rules or increase penalties to protect linemen. Penalty: Negated, or 15 yards.
Football is a great game, and it's pretty hard to find rule changes that should be made. You could always say "remove the helmet to helmet hitting rule" if you were a jackass and liked to see people hurt. Other than that, about the only thing that I get tired of seeing is ridiculous penalties called for "protecting the quarterback."
This happens both at the NFL level and the college level. I don't mind the college level as much because these are young men aged 18-22 years (typically) and the elite ones rely on their college career to funnel them to their professional career of playing football for a living. In the NFL though, you take a chance every day on that field knowing that you could be hurt. It doesn't even matter if you're the punter, a freak return could have a returner falling on your leg and breaking it.
The newer rules to protect quarterbacks are supposed to keep people who are in a defenseless position from getting hurt. The problem I have with that is that quarterbacks are not special, or at least they shouldn't be. Every week wideouts get obliterated going up over the middle for a ball. They're completely defenseless while in the air, but as soon as the ball touches their hands they are a prime target for getting on "Hits of the Week." Worse yet, linemen aren't protected in any way. There are supposed to be rules against illegal holds, use of hands, and chop blocks, but as anyone with eyes can see, those calls are few and far between. So if I'm changing one rule in football I'm either removing (or better defining) some of the quarterback rules like late hits or I'm adding a new string of rules that protect the linemen who fight it out every play.
Sport: Hockey. Rule change: add a pond. Penalty: falling into said pond.
Few people in the US still watch hockey. How can they improve that? Add an opening (or multiple openings) in the ice! How awesome would it be to see Crosby break Ovechkin's ankles and then watching Big Al fall into a pond? You could isolate the ponds from the ice and heat them so no one dies of hypothermia or anything crazy like that, but at least it would make hockey worth watching for a change.
Sport: NASCAR. Rule change: racin' in the rain. Penalty: Wrecking?
I've been to a couple of NASCAR races in my life. One sucked balls (Brickyard) and one was pretty awesome (Bristol). I was lucky both times because the race didn't get rained out on Sunday. When that happens, NASCAR runs the race on Monday and there have to be thousands of fans who can't sit around and take a day of vacation just to watch a race.
There is an easy solution to this. Race in the rain. It might sound dangerous, but why can countless other racing circuits continue to run in the rain and NASCAR can't? Let's be clear, I'm not talking Daytona and 'Dega here. No one needs cars riding 200mph in the rain, but some of the mile ovals could be controlled races with special compound tires meant for driving on wet surfaces. The most ridiculous case of this is when Fontana or Watkins Glen get rained out. They're road courses for God's sake! They're meant to be ran in any condition.
Sport: Golf. Rule change: players get one mulligan per nine holes. Penalty: lowered scores.
Everybody loves a little weekend golf scramble. What everyone really loves about weekend golf scrambles are low scores and mulligans. Golf is already a game full of strategy. Giving each player one mulligan for every nine holes would be extremely fun for the fans and I think it would be equally compelling for the players.
Holding on to a late lead, do you use your mulligan on 14 when your drive heads into the rough? Down 1 on 17 do you take a second run at that 14 footer or do you save the mulligan for the final hole? The decisions made to use mulligans on the front nine might actually be even more strategic as you're too far from the end of the round to make sound decisions about using a mulligan to escape a fairway bunker on 2. This would also make the announcer's lives very easy because they could debate ad naseum if a player correctly used their mulligans.
So there you go. We just made six of the top US sports better. Who's with me?
