Sports rules you just don't get OR would like changed

[budwom]

Golfers should be forced to wear clothes that don't make small children cry.

[gus]

Sporting KC is no worse than the former name, Kansas City Wiz.

But as long as we're in get off my lawn mode, how about promotion and relegation?

For that matter, how about promotion and relegation in baseball? The teams with the worst records in the AL and NL go down, and the champions of the IL and PCL come up. There would need to be lots of rules about player movement if a MLB team is going to be playing against its own farm team, but that can be figured out (there is precedent in Spanish football, where clubs' developmental sides play in the lower divisions, and could be drawn against the parent club in the Copa del Rey), and it makes for at lot of meaningful game in September.

I love the idea of promotion and relegation -- it changes the dynamic of the bottom of the table quite a bit. But I'm not sure how it would work with drafts. Does the relegating team not get to draft players? Do the newly promoted teams get into the next draft? What would their draft position be? Or does America decide to give up on this socialist notion that the bottom teams deserve more support and use a free market system to figure out who plays where?

[chris13]

Obviously, my rule wouldn't apply for elimination rounds in any sort of bracket format, where you'd still need penalty kicks or whatever. But watching teams intentionally play for ties in the earlier rounds is almost as bad as watching tanking NBA teams.

I realize it will never happen, but this is why I proposed that in World Cup elimination rounds both teams are out of the tournament if they are 0-0 after 120 minutes. As burnsesqburns points out, it's not very practical, but it would solve the problem of teams playing for ties. As an alternative, if a team if 0-0 after 120 minutes and then wins on penalty kicks, they start the next game down 1-nil.

I agree, I hate watching soccer games where both teams are playing to get to 0-0 and penalty kicks.

[camion]

I realize it will never happen, but this is why I proposed that in World Cup elimination rounds both teams are out of the tournament if they are 0-0 after 120 minutes. As burnsesqburns points out, it's not very practical, but it would solve the problem of teams playing for ties. As an alternative, if a team if 0-0 after 120 minutes and then wins on penalty kicks, they start the next game down 1-nil.

I agree, I hate watching soccer games where both teams are playing to get to 0-0 and penalty kicks.

How about giving all teams a set number of penalty kicks for the entire tournament, 10 or so? That should make for an interesting dynamic in the later rounds.

[Tripping William]

Golfers should be forced to wear clothes that don't make small children cry.

To say that Kevin Chappell disagrees with you would be a gross understatement.

[cato]

Inter-league play is an abomination (you know, two professional baseball teams playing each other) but let's blow up the game of soccer? Okie dokie.

[Mal]

Sporting KC is no worse than the former name, Kansas City Wiz.

Gotta disagree with you here. Wiz is cheesy (pun intended?), yes, although it was Wizards, formally speaking. But it was bad in a whole different, less insidious way. When it comes to kids on my lawn, I've found recently that the importation of foreign sports terminology definitely pushes my curmudgeon buttons. Generally speaking I have a very high tolerance for pretentiousness, being the pourover coffee drinking, bespoke sports coat wearing, English shaving cream using, German sports car loving yuppie that I am, but I draw the line here. Gus (who I greatly admire and respect) upthread responded to your relegation note and used the word "table" instead of "standings" when discussing baseball. No, no, no, no, no, gus. Just, no. This creeping Anglophilia has to stop. Also, it's not a "hashtag," it's a freaking pound sign! Good DAY, sir!

(Sort of) Seriously, though, what does "Sporting" even mean in the American sports team context? It's a professional soccer franchise. Some rich guys purchased a franchise from MLS less than 20 years ago and went out and hired some professional, decidedly non-local, players to play for them. This didn't evolve from a group of miners or firemen who organized a squad through their town's "sports club" a hundred years ago, eventually becoming professionalized and maybe incorporating an academy with youth feeder teams, etc. No one's playing team handball and rugby, or even American football or basketball, under the umbrella of an actual Kansas City Sporting Club or KC Athletic Association or whatever. Calling the team "Sporting" in this way equates to claiming a history that does not exist.

Same thing with "Real." Unless I'm mistaken, that's a Spanish term for a team that at some point had the support of the monarch (rooting support vs. support for its charter, I don't know). How in the world is that relevant to Salt Lake City's MLS team? Some might even note that we live in a country that rather famously rejected monarchy.

I guess I can buy "FC" although I'd prefer it be "SC." At least there's some technical accuracy to the term to go along with the pretension. It's just so poseur-ish and reeking of desperation to name your team like it's based in Liverpool, though. Like your little brother claiming George Brett's his favorite ballplayer, too, at the age of 6.

For that matter, how about promotion and relegation in baseball?

Love the concept of relegation, and how it plays out in European soccer leagues. Structurally, I don't know how you'd ever get there with American baseball, though, given that the current MLB franchises control nearly every player in the minors, which would be the only logical place for your 2nd, 3rd and beyond tiers of leagues. Not to mention the way the big team uses its AAA affiliate as a bus stop/rehab center/detention facility/storage location for its players. The institutional inertia's too great, but it would neat to see relegation.

Could we try it for basketball, though? It'd be a lot easier to turn the D league into a collection of independent teams than to dismantle the baseball minor league concept. I mean, only 60 guys per year get drafted by the NBA - it wouldn't be that hard to either open up the draft to another 30 teams or do away with it and allow franchises to go after the talent it wants, especially when there's already a salary cap in place. It would have huge ramifications on college hoops, for better and worse, I suppose.

[rsvman]

Inter-league play is an abomination (you know, two professional baseball teams playing each other) but let's blow up the game of soccer? Okie dokie.

I thought of a few changes to improve soccer:
-let em use their hands
-take away the goalie
-make the goal smaller
-replace the grass with, I don't know, maybe hardwood
-make the goal circular, and raise it up about ten feet or so
-replace the ball with a slightly larger one
-force the players to bounce the ball on the floor when they move with the ball
-put a large piece of hardened glass behind the goal to allow the ball to bounce off it into the goal
-double the number of points scored for each goal
-limit the number of players to five from each team playing at a time

There are other refinements, but we can start with these. I think this would improve the game a great deal. ;-)

[chris13]

Gotta disagree with you here. Wiz is cheesy (pun intended?), yes, although it was Wizards, formally speaking. But it was bad in a whole different, less insidious way. When it comes to kids on my lawn, I've found recently that the importation of foreign sports terminology definitely pushes my curmudgeon buttons. Generally speaking I have a very high tolerance for pretentiousness, being the pourover coffee drinking, bespoke sports coat wearing, English shaving cream using, German sports car loving yuppie that I am, but I draw the line here. Gus (who I greatly admire and respect) upthread responded to your relegation note and used the word "table" instead of "standings" when discussing baseball. No, no, no, no, no, gus. Just, no. This creeping Anglophilia has to stop. Also, it's not a "hashtag," it's a freaking pound sign! Good DAY, sir!
.

Agree that it is not the MLB table. Somehow the importing of European naming conventions for MLS teams doesn't bother me since soccer is the primary sport over there. If they ever make team names plural, though, then it's on...i.e. NO "Duke are favored to beat Virginia Tech"

[Mal]

Agree that it is not the MLB table. Somehow the importing of European naming conventions for MLS teams doesn't bother me since soccer is the primary sport over there. If they ever make team names plural, though, then it's on...i.e. NO "Duke are favored to beat Virginia Tech"

I'd better never see a basketball score printed as "Duke 87 - 75 North Carolina," either!

[jimmymax]

Golfers should be forced to wear clothes that don't make small children cry.

Caddies should be banned and golf crowds should be allowed to make all the noise they want.

[rsvman]

Caddies should be banned and golf crowds should be allowed to make all the noise they want.

Let 'em drive carts like everybody else. Let 'em wear shorts if they want to.


Crowds, though, if anything, would benefit from being reined in more so that allowed to do what they want, IMO.

[left_hook_lacey]

The 30 second rule between thread searches on DBR should be abolished. It's an outdated rule, and borderline discriminatory.

[Mal]

Caddies should be banned and golf crowds should be allowed to make all the noise they want.

Interesting ideas. I'll say "no, thanks." I wouldn't be totally opposed to the first, I guess. Would place a premium on being in shape and add more endurance to the game, as long as what you mean by no caddies means carry your own bag and not ride on carts. Carts are a scourge.

On the noise, though, it's hard enough to focus with the occasional car horn 200 yards away. Maybe over time players would learn to completely wash out the sound and it would become just background, but the game demands such mental concentration I think having random yahoos encouraged to shout at you in the middle of your backswing is not a good idea. Plus, it's totally counter to the way amateurs play. Golf is, at its core, seeking a peaceful, quiet walk of 4 hours, alone with your thoughts, punctuated occasionally by swinging a stick at a ball.

How about a shot clock? Get to your ball, assess the lie and the distance and the wind and the contours in front of you, pick a club, take two or three practice shots, step up and hit it. Exceptions could be made if you're in a bunker or the woods or something.

No one's touched hockey yet on this thread:

- all games at college level and beyond to be played on int'l-sized sheet
- larger goal
- if it's close, it's not offsides and it's not reviewable. Or a more radical one - offsides automatically waived off if the puck is skated into the zone by another offensive player. Would mean no cherry-picking way ahead of the play, but no if the winger's a couple feet ahead of a center who has to change direction to avoid a defender while carrying forward.
- start calling interference, hooking and slashing penalties again. Not a rule change, per se, but I feel like this is similar to holding in football where it's literally happening on every play and maybe 10% of the infractions are called.

[rsvman]

As for the golf shot clock, I'm definitely in favor of faster play, so I'd be ok with it.

A more radical idea would be to have a tour for speed golf. Speed golf would be to golf what speed chess is to chess. Although you play by the same rules, it's almost a different game.
The idea would be to set some time limit for the entire round; say, maybe an hour and 45 minutes. For every five minutes or portion thereof longer, you would have one stroke added to your score.
I'd love to see the current tour pros try this one week. Who would win? My money is on Pat Perez!

[camion]

As for the golf shot clock, I'm definitely in favor of faster play, so I'd be ok with it.

A more radical idea would be to have a tour for speed golf. Speed golf would be to golf what speed chess is to chess. Although you play by the same rules, it's almost a different game.
The idea would be to set some time limit for the entire round; say, maybe an hour and 45 minutes. For every five minutes or portion thereof longer, you would have one stroke added to your score.
I'd love to see the current tour pros try this one week. Who would win? My money is on Pat Perez!

Interesting idea. What would be done about players stuck behind slow pokes? Would there be passing lanes?

[Indoor66]

Interesting idea. What would be done about players stuck behind slow pokes? Would there be passing lanes?

That reminds me of the Triangle on the wall in the Auto Repair shop office. Each leg was marked: "Speed", "Quality", "Price".

At the bottom of the sign it said: "Pick Two."

I'm not sure you have a good idea. Which two do you pick?

[BD80]

... Golf is, at its core, seeking a peaceful, quiet walk of 4 hours, alone with your thoughts, punctuated occasionally by swinging a stick at a ball.

...

Occasionally? Not in my experience.

Which brings me to peaceful ... I do try to swear under my breath so as to avoid disturbing other golfers, but I am obligated to alert all golfers to potential pending doom when I launch another errant missile, even those who reason that "there is no way I could mean them" (the ones who least expect it are frequently the ones I am trying to warn). More than once I have had a beautiful lie in the middle of the fairway (or teebox or green) only to have amazed golfers try to figure out which hole I am playing.

[rsvman]

Interesting idea. What would be done about players stuck behind slow pokes? Would there be passing lanes?

They could just start the players the holes apart. Nobody should catch anybody.

[BD80]

They could just start the players the holes apart. Nobody should catch anybody.

Except Sergio, who would be lapped by the field at least once ...