As something of an appendix to his autobiography, , John McEnroe provides a list of ideas that would make professional tennis more interesting. Of these ideas, the one I liked best was fairly simple: A let on the serve does not negate the serve. That is, no more calling “Let.
” If the ball hits the chord, so be it. The serve still counts as good if it’s in, as bad if it’s out.
When I was at a bar in Athens, Georgia several years ago, I found myself at a table of patrons engaged in a conversation about baseball.
While I love Major League Ball, several of the people at the table found the game insufferably boring. When I asked what could be done to make it more interesting, a young woman said with no hesitation, as if she had thought about this a lot, “So, when the guy hits the ball, he can choose to run to either first or third, depending on what he wants to do.”
While in one case, the idea is a bit more practical than in the other, in both cases, we have very interesting and fun ideas about what could make professional sports more fun, or more chaotic, to watch.
While I on Xark that we encourage loud fan behavior at tennis and golf, I’m interested here in ideas we might share that concern changing the rules of professional sports. While I know Dan’s not crazy about meme-type posts, let’s play with this one. Ever had an idea about how to make football, baseball, hockey, boxing, soccer (for heaven’s sake) more fun?
I’d love to hear it.
| Football: I'd do away with the no assistance in forward progress rule. Then every team could hire a midget tail back for short yardage situations.
Snap the ball, handoff to midget, toss midget over the D-line and BAM! You got yerself a first down AND flying midgets.
NASCAR: Build racetracks to Hot Wheel specs.
I'm talking flaming hoops, figure eights, and ramps...
LOTS of ramps.
I don't remember being against meme-type posts. Apparently I was against it before I was for it?
Well, it's entirely possible, but if it was, I don't know what I was thinking. Must have been drinking at the time..
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So, rules changes:
In football, the Arena League has it right about pre-snap motion. In the NFL, everybody has to be set for a beat before the snap (there's a slight exception, but let's not quibble).
In Arena ball, one of the backs and receivers is allowed to be moving toward the line of scrimmage before the snap, giving that player a running start to get into a pass pattern.
That's a huge advantage to the offense, which would require an adjustment in defensive philosophy and a change in the way players read and interpret the pre-snap gamesmanship.
The midget-tossing scheme wouldn't work, because you'd just assign players to go high like volleyball defenders at the net and whack the midget back.
Baseball: Dump the infield fly rule. Just because.
Soccer: I completely agree on the offsides rule.
Put the longball back in football.
Also: Basketball instituted a three-second rule to open up the lane, which had become the province of hulking giants. The game got faster and more athletic.
What if you instituted something similar in soccer to keep all the defenders from just clogging up the area in front of the net during attacks?
Hockey: No more "icing." Because I can't remember what it means.
Basketball: This is the sport in dire need of rescue. Reason: It's not that the players are hip-hop blacks -- it's that the speed of the game has increased to the point now where your average guard has like 4.3 speed.
I watch college ball and it's like watching a footrace, with track stars pushing the ball upcourt to create numbers advantages. This is exciting, to a point, but if height is alienating to some fans, so is that kind of speed. Basketball used to be ruled by graceful and creative playmakers, and there was a place for the "skills" players who, though they lacked athletic numbers, were so adept at ballhandling, or shooting, or moving without the ball, that they were a huge part of the game.
So let's make anybody who is faster than me wear ankle weights at all time on the court.
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