Change the Rules

November 18, 2023

Rules changes saved baseball from ossifying in front of our eyes. With Theo Epstein’s foresight and perseverance, baseball is now faster and funner. The pitch clock prevents batters from endlessly adjusting their gloves, and pitchers from monotonously pacing around the mound getting ready for their next pitch as if the fate of the world hung in the balance. The shift that was designed to prevent Ted Williams from hitting a 1,000 is now as dead as dear old Ted. With larger bases and fewer opportunities for pitchers to pick off runners at first, the ghosts of Ty Cobb, Maury Wills and Ricky Henderson once again terrorize the base paths. Which begs the question. What other rules in other sports need to be either eliminated or enforced? Here is my short list of recommendations.

In basketball, the number of timeouts in the last two minutes should be reduced to one per team. It is painful to watch the end of any NBA game. Like the parable of the loaves and the fishes, it is a miracle how they can turn two minutes into what seems like two hours.

Eliminate free throws. If a player commits a foul, it’s worth one or two points, and the ball gets handed over to the other team. Keep things moving. Nobody enjoys watching free throws.

Eliminate the three point shot. Watching basketball is almost as fun as watching two, 6’4” tennis players endlessly batter each other from the baseline. Where is the finesse? Where are the big men? Where are the pick and rolls, and the fast breaks? Today, all five players set up outside the three point arc trying to decide whose turn it is.

In football, eliminate the kickoffs. They are dangerous and already a joke. While you are at it, you can eliminate the coin toss as well. The home team kicks off, and the visiting team receives the opening kickoff. Period, end of report. I know they are trying to sell advertising with every delay, but futbol somehow makes it work.

And why is there a two minute warning? Who is being warned about what? Are we being warned that it is time to take the chicken wings off of the grill?

Skip the second half kickoff. Resume play where you left off, which will eliminate the slowdown in the last two minutes of the first half. See above regarding timeouts.

Quarterbacks shouldn’t be allowed to slide. It’s not baseball. If a QB decides to run for it, and leave the pocket, they should be fair game. They might think twice, or even three times, about doing it.

I like the college rule that you only need one foot in bounds on a catch. These are football players, not ballerinas.

Get rid of reviews. They slow an already slow game down even further. In the long run, it all evens out. In the short run, if you are dumb enough to leave your fate in the hands of the officials, you get what you deserve.

Change the rules regarding overtime so that even a Ph.D. in mathematics can understand them.

Finally, a touchdown should be exactly that i.e. a touchdown. On a running play, the football must touch the end zone. It’s not called a “breaking the plane.”

Eliminate fighting in hockey. It’s not MMA. If you instigate a fight, you are gone. Olympic hockey is far superior to the NHL. They actually skate, pass, and shoot. What a concept. It would be illegal in most jurisdictions. I can’t speak for Texas.

Lastly, we get to the game of golf, which I officiate and try to play. The pace of play in professional events is egregious. It doesn’t have to be this way. If I take four hours to play a round of golf, and you take five, it’s almost like giving a basketball team an extra period for scoring. They are probably going to win. It’s not fair. Tournament and rules officials know what needs to be done because it is done at other levels of the sport. The USGA, for example, terrorizes amateur players for slow play. The people running professional events just don’t have the golf balls to enforce the rules.

Speaking of the rules, there is something wrong with the rules and how they are administered when two or more professional golfers and their caddies can’t figure out what to do or are afraid to proceed without calling over a rules official. The drama of waiting for a golf cart to pull up from out of nowhere is riveting.

Lastly, professional golfers hit the ball too damn far. If I could hit a wedge into every green, I would not suck as badly as I do. The professional golfer doesn’t care where the ball goes off of the tee because, regardless of where it goes, he only has a 100 yards in. Distance has ruined professional golf in the same way that big-headed, metal racquets have ruined tennis, and the three pointer has ruined basketball.

I think pool and table tennis are still viable sports.

Baseball got it right. It can be done.

Paul Chiampa