As a soccer fan, this is my biggest pet peeve too. I think that video review has slowed this somewhat, but there’s a lot of inertia still built up. It may end up decreasing over time, we’ll see. For things that aren’t caught live I’d like to see retroactive cards/suspensions. There’d still be an incentive to dive in big games, but for a regular season it could matter.
Another thing that bothers be is the faux concern about pushing and whatnot during a stoppage of play. There’s this idea that shoving an opponent is irredeemable and worthy of a suspension where a very dangerous tackle during the run of play is deemed normal. Sure, it’s not in the course of a game, but competitors bumping and shoving each other should be expected.
I’m glad the Mariners seem to default to “open.” I think the Brewers do too? The Blue Jays don’t seem to, at least not in my limited experience: I’ve been to Rogers Centre twice and had the roof closed both times even though the weather outside was quite decent. I think I read somewhere that the Diamondbacks’ roof is closed practically all the time. Seems kind of pointless to have a retractable if you don’t use it.
If you can’t tell, I’m very much in favor of stadiums that are open to the elements.
I mean to include even when the batter has stepped out of the batter’s box completely, has es back turned, is messing with es shoes or gloves, etc. When someone is at bat, E should be at bat the whole time, and the pitcher should be able to throw regardless of whether the batter is “ready.”
Why should NHL only have teams in cold weather areas? Basketball started up north (Mass) as did football (NJ) and probably baseball. Should those sports not have expanded to the south too? NHL teams got more players when players from behind the iron curtain as well as from Sweden and Finland.
Yesh, the D Backs are closed pretty much the whole season. I was there on an opening day in April and they were open. But, IIRC, even their postseason games played at night in pleasant weather always featured a closed roof.
Same with the Arizona Cardinals. Went to their January playoff game against the Eagles, closed roof.
As I recall, Rogers Centre and/or MLB has specific rules about when the Centre’s roof can open or close. If memory serves, they are something like (and no guarantees that these are correct):
– If a game begins with the roof closed, it will not be opened during the game, no matter what the weather is outside.
– If a game begins with the roof open, it can be closed, if weather conditions develop that warrant its closing.
I’m sure that weather forecasts play into the equation somehow as well–the weather might be perfectly fine at the start of the game, but if it looks like a summer thunderstorm might descend upon Toronto in the next couple of hours (as can happen in the middle of summer), then they’ll start the game with the roof closed.
Again, no guarantees that these are correct, and I’m reaching back to when I lived in Toronto and attended many Blue Jays games there. For what it’s worth, I was last at a Jays game in Toronto about five years ago. It was a beautiful spring day, not a cloud in the sky, and the roof was open for the whole game. So they do open it, even if only from time to time.
For some reason the former bb/hockey arena in Pittsburgh had a roof that opened. Roof broke down in 2001 and was never opened after that. It was built in 61 and torn down in 2011.
As a spectator (particularly to NHL games) it’s the loud organ and rock music that bothers me (especially if you’re near a speaker). You can’t talk to your friends. Limit the music to intermissions, or breaks of at least two minutes. Why blast me with noise every time there’s a 10-second pause in play? I want to enjoy the game - the way I did when I went with my father to games in the 60’s. The fans provided their own noise.
Another thing I’ve seen done is when the home team is doing badly and the fans start booing, the organ will suddenly start up - trying to drown out the boos.
(and then there’s the continual prompts to “make noise” or “start a wave”.)
I’ll stick to soccer, tennis, golf, etc, and other sports without added noise - just that provided by the fans…
People who boo their own teams. If you’re only supporting your team when they win, then you’re a jerk. I hate to do the “no REAL fan” bullshit, but yeah, you’re not a real fan. You’re just a bandwagoner.
No offense, but then why would you go to a ball game? Sports games are probably one the last places I’d go for “quiet reflection”.
The Civic Arena started out as a venue for the Civic Light Opera, that’s why.
Eventually though it just got too expensive to open after awhile – the operating costs, maitenance, repairs, etc.
So a lot of places that have stadiums with retractable roofs generally don’t open and close them frequently, because they just can’t afford it, I imagine. It’s easier and cheaper to have one default position.
I don’t understand. Does this mean you want cities to pay for stadiums?
MetLife Stadium was paid for entirely privately, no public money used. Are you saying the private investors who paid for it shouldn’t get to sell the naming rights, but instead the big city a few miles away gets to pick the name because…why?
My complaints are with the clearly rehearsed or staged celebrations. If that happens to be over-represented by black players, then black players will be over-represented in my complaints. That’s just how it goes.
If someone scores and jumps around out of their mind excited or pumps their fists or whatever, that’s all good. If they organize together and perform some stupid pre-rehearsed choreographed bullshit, I won’t be shamed by claims of “racism” that I find it cringe-worthy.
I’ll give two examples from my own team, the New York Giants. During their 2007 Superbowl season, the defensive line started to come together and take over games. (Michael Strahan, Justin Tuck, Osi Unemyioura; of course they did.) But they also started a new celebration, where the linemen would come together after a sack and then all mimic doing a basketball jump shot because “ballin’”. It was the corniest, most cringeworthy celebratory gimmick I’ve ever witnessed. Just awful.
Then there’s Victor Cruz. Not a lot of Latinx stars in the NFL so he felt his representation mattered. His first touchdown he (says that he) hadn’t prepared anything, and the first thing that came to mind to put his heritage front and center was to do a salsa dance. Totally fine that first time, but then it became his “thing” and he had to do it every time. It got very hard for me to watch his salsa dance, but I don’t think he really had any choice in the matter so I don’t kill him too much for it. Not nearly as bad as the “Ultimate Douchy Move” celebration known as “Ballin’” by the defensive line. Yuck.
Like what you like and don’t like what you don’t like. Personally, I don’t like all of the folks out there who get their undies in a twist and start complaining about the way someone celebrated and how they should “act like they’ve been there before” and/or “respect the game.” To me, this sounds like a low-key way to take shots at different cultures and I truly wish these people would simply stop trying to put forth their cultural expectations like they are goals the rest of us are supposed to live up to.
And to the best of my knowledge you aren’t doing any of that.
I agree that many of the rehearsed celebrations are disingenuous and corny as fuck. Seriously, you and your crew actually thought about and practiced what to do and that is the best y’all could come up with?!?
Baseball ‘unwritten rules’. Agree 100% with everything written before. Most sports have some unwritten rules, and most of them are rubbish - baseball’s just seem the most exreme and players and (some) fans get incredibly incensed when they are broken. But if your team breaks a written rule and gets away with it, that’s called ‘on-field cunning’ and ‘experience’ etc.
Timeouts in all sports. Why? (I know - advertising $$$$$). Coaches already get quarter-time and half-time breaks (and whatever they are called in ice hockey) to talk to the players. We are told the teams have on-field captains. I want to see the players play and make decisions on the field in real time. Coaches set strategy. Players implement tactics. If the players need a break because they are tired - get fitter.
This is one of my big things. My biggest peeves are:
(1) Too much substitution and platooning. A team should be largely the same 9/11/whatever people from the start to the finish of the game, barring actual need, like injury. If I were king of sports, I’d make all players in every sport play both offense and defense.
(2) Involvement in the game by non-players, meaning managers and coaches. I would decree that once the game starts, the game should be played only by people eligible to actually play on the field. Coaches, managers, and other advisors would be benished to sit with the spectators at the start of the game, with no communication allowed with the players until the game is over. All in-game decisions would be made by a field captain who is actually in play. That means baseball lineups written by and all strategy decided by the field captain, runners deciding on their own whether to advance or not, with no directions from base coaches, etc.
Basketball: Intentional fouls. (When breaking rules looks like good strategy, the rules are in need of improvement.)
You could put a stop to this with a rule that says any 2-shot foul includes the option of forgoing the second shot in favor of free possession at mid court.
I think I like everything about that. Twice a game you can do 4th and 15 from your own 25 instead of an onside kick. Otherwise just do a (now nearly impossible) onside kick.
Down by two scores at the 2:00 warning you’re pretty much done because a successful onside kick is like winning the lottery. 4th and 15 feels more achievable through merit, even if statistically it isn’t any better success rate than the more luck-based onside kick.
Is there anywhere we could look up the league-wide success rate of 4th and 15 from recent seasons or all time? Ideally from the offense’s 25, but any field position is fine. There can’t be that many per season. Would profootballreference or footballoutsiders have that kind of data?
