# Sporting dominance that caused the game to be changed **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [July 23, 2012, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sporting-dominance-that-caused-the-game-to-be-changed/629174 "2012-07-23T22:01:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![denquixote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9bd4f/32.png) [@denquixote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/denquixote)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sporting-dominance-that-caused-the-game-to-be-changed/629174/41 "2012-07-24T20:02:18Z")
> [@bup](#): > > [That’s the one I was going to mention.](http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1079906/index.htm)You have to have at least one foot in front of the ball when you put, also. I am going to need a cite for that rule about one foot in front of the ball. Sam Snead used to putt with both feet to the left of and slightly behind the ball. I know that is PGA and not USGA, but I think this is still legal. Also it is legal to reach across the hole to tap in a putt, which would cause both feet to be either in front of or behind the ball. The rule simply states that you cannot putt from astride the ball or with either foot on the line of the putt. ---
**Author:** ![TheBoltEater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@TheBoltEater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheBoltEater)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sporting-dominance-that-caused-the-game-to-be-changed/629174/42 "2012-07-24T20:22:31Z")
> [@Zakalwe](#): > > The NCAA began requiring athletes to attend class because a super-talented corner back (who shall remain nameless) didn’t attend any classes his senior year at (school omitted). > > It’s called the Deion Sanders Rule. (Oops! 😉 ). Does that count? Off topic, but you reminded me of UCLA softball pitcher Tanya Harding (not to be confused, of course, with ice skater and knee-whacker-orderer Tonya Harding). Tanya led UCLA to the softball National Championship in 1995 - a championship which was later voided due to a number of NCAA violations she was probably at the heart of. But what makes her story so similar to Deion’s is that she arrived at UCLA on March 22nd, 1995, went 17-1 as their starting pitcher (after having missed the first 20 games of the season) and then quit school and went back to her native Australia ten weeks later - just 2 days after the National Championship game - without having taken any finals… _and quite possibly without having ever attended a single class._ [Here’s](http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1006700/index.htm) a Sports Illustrated story about her from '95, before the title was vacated. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sporting-dominance-that-caused-the-game-to-be-changed/629174/43 "2012-07-24T20:58:49Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Wimbledon was her first major title in two years. Compare that to 2002-03, when she won all four major titles in a row, or to the men’s circuit, where three guys have combined to win 29 of the last 30 Slam events. Tennis doesn’t need a league system because it already sort of has one. There aren’t separate leagues, but you have to work your way up in the rankings by winning points, and you get into bigger events by winning more points. > > As far as baseball goes, I think we’re seeing more shifts and altered defensive aligments than ever. With some hitters it doesn’t reflect dominance so much as it reflects the fact that teams are able to more effectively collect and use data on the tendencies of the hitters. Joe Maddon and Tampa are leading the way on that front. The Blue Jays use the shift so much, it’s actually playing havoc with sabermetricians’ ability to calculate their defensive stats. At the end of June, Baseball Reference already had Brett Lawrie as having put up a better defensive year than any full season Brooks Robinson ever had. They’ve fixed it since (he’s great but not superhuman) but what was happening, basically, is that Lawrie was shifted over to the second base side so often he was making all kinds of plays that were outside of a defensive zone he wasn’t actually playing. He was being credited for making sensational catches on ground balls that were hit right at him. We’re going to see more shifting, I believe. We’re just now seeing it done with righthanded batters for the first time. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sporting-dominance-that-caused-the-game-to-be-changed/629174/44 "2012-07-24T21:14:22Z")
> [@denquixote](#): > > I am going to need a cite for that rule about one foot in front of the ball. Sam Snead used to putt with both feet to the left of and slightly behind the ball. I know that is PGA and not USGA, but I think this is still legal. Also it is legal to reach across the hole to tap in a putt, which would cause both feet to be either in front of or behind the ball. The rule simply states that you cannot putt from astride the ball or with either foot on the line of the putt. Guess I’m wrong. Oops. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Jeffrey\_Lebowski](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_jeffrey_lebowski/32/215_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Jeffrey\_Lebowski](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Jeffrey_Lebowski)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sporting-dominance-that-caused-the-game-to-be-changed/629174/45 "2012-07-24T22:28:07Z")
While Wilt has been mentioned, nobody has commented on his affecting the size of the lane. Because of him, the lane between the foul line and the out of bounds line behind the basket was widened. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sporting-dominance-that-caused-the-game-to-be-changed/629174/46 "2012-07-25T01:18:10Z")
They outlawed spitballs and other doctored balls because they were too hard to hit around 1920. Forward passes used to be illegal in American football. It was legalized in 1906 primarily because the game with no passing had become too brutal. Apparently forward passes had been done before though according to Wiki The flying wedge and other mass plays were made illegal in 1894 fir similar reasons. Kickoffs used to be made from the 40. They moved that back to the 35 and then the 30 to encourage run backs after soccer style kickers were kicking touchbacks too often. They’ve since moved it back up to the 35 to cut down on them. An almost unnoticeable but crucial rule change is that the kicker may have his plant foot in front of the kick and not be offside. Many if not most kickers now do this with soccer-style kicks. That used to be offside and soccer-style kicks for kick offs were much harder. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sporting-dominance-that-caused-the-game-to-be-changed/629174/47 "2012-07-25T14:08:25Z")
Not a single individual, but there’s the small group of U.S. swimmers who first used the butterfly stroke, at the time a legal variant of the breast stroke. It was so dominating, Swimming had to create races just for the butterfly and ban it from the breast stroke races. Do individuals who were so un-dominating at one thing that rules changed count for the OP? Shaquille O’Neil was poor enough at free throws that teams adopted a hack-a-Shaq strategy of deliberately fouling him at the end of games (even when he didn’t have the ball), as a way to get the ball back without giving up too many points. The NBA changed the rules on how they dealt with away-from-the-ball fouls at the end of games because of this. ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sporting-dominance-that-caused-the-game-to-be-changed/629174/48 "2012-07-25T14:30:47Z")
> [@OldGuy](#): > > They outlawed spitballs and other doctored balls because they were too hard to hit around 1920. They were also hard to dodge. When Roy Chapman was killed by an inside pitch in 1920, the spitball and its unsanitary cousins were irreconcilably on their way out. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sporting-dominance-that-caused-the-game-to-be-changed/629174/49 "2012-07-25T14:42:10Z")
> [@Zakalwe](#): > > The NCAA began requiring athletes to attend class because a super-talented corner back (who shall remain nameless) didn’t attend any classes his senior year at (school omitted). > > It’s called the Deion Sanders Rule. (Oops! 😉 ). Does that count? If Jeff Pearlstein is to be believed, Deion was just the same in the NFL- he blew off meetings regularly and slept or goofed off in the ones he DID attend. He figured (CORRECTLY!) that he didn’t need to listen to the coaches or study film. HIS job, as he saw it, was to shut down the other team’s primary receiver, and as a rule, he DID just that. So, to his way of thinking, he had nothing else to learn from coaches. The good news for the Cowboys was that Deion was SO fast and SO talented that he could (and did) get away with that kind of attitude. The bad news was that his attitude was contageous, and he served as a role model for guys who weren’t nearly as fast or talented. Deion could goof off all week and still play lockdown corner on Sundays. His teammates NEEDED to study, and often didn’t, because… hey, DEION didn’t study, so it couldn’t be that important. ---
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sporting-dominance-that-caused-the-game-to-be-changed/629174/50 "2012-07-25T17:06:29Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > A number of golf courses were “Tiger-proofed” back in the early part of the millennium, but the game itself didn’t change. IMO, that is a myth. Courses were lengthen to counter the better technology. In golf balls and equipment. The Titleist Pro V1 and its cousins forced the change. ===== The NHL power play rule was changed in the 1950’s. > [@](#): > > Back in the 1950s, when the penalties were served in full and the Montreal Canadiens were scoring so often with their Hall of Fame unit that goal judges would just keep the goal lamp lit for two minutes. There are probably better [citations but here it is](http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/four-nhl-rule-changes-that-would-revolutionize-power-plays?urn=nhl,wp10401). ---
**Author:** ![Blkshp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blkshp/32/7135_2.png) [@Blkshp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blkshp)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sporting-dominance-that-caused-the-game-to-be-changed/629174/51 "2012-07-25T19:47:47Z")
In addition to being one of (if not the) best football players ever, Jim Brown is also considered by many to be the best lacrosse player ever. His dominance prompted rules changes imposing a minimum length of a stick and the requirement that the ball be kept away from the body. Apparently Brown used a stick with a 6" handle and he would grip the stick with his thumb over the ball and held against his chest and simply run through/over anyone between him and the goal. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sporting-dominance-that-caused-the-game-to-be-changed/629174/52 "2012-07-25T20:01:56Z")
> [@Ashley\_Pomeroy](#): > > Eventually the governing body will start to think about adopting a league system, like football - and just like football there’ll be a plethora of different leagues with confusing names, and people will stop paying attention, and television will relegate it to a footnote, and kids won’t have posters on the walls etc, and eventually people will wonder whatever happened to it. Perhaps I don’t understand what you mean by a “league system,” but in the United States, the rise of a single, dominant, top-level professional league with a limited number of stable (no relegation/promotion) clubs has coincided with the phenomenal success of professional sports since the 1950s. ---
**Author:** ![DadWagonDriver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/edb3f5/32.png) [@DadWagonDriver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DadWagonDriver)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sporting-dominance-that-caused-the-game-to-be-changed/629174/53 "2012-07-25T21:07:45Z")
The NBA made defensive rules much stricter after the Pistons won their last championship. Their run of keeping opponents under 70 points was considered less than entertaining. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sporting-dominance-that-caused-the-game-to-be-changed/629174/54 "2012-07-25T22:23:54Z")
A similar situation to ski jumping - javelins were redesigned because athletes were almost throwing them beyond the field and onto the track. No one competitor was responsible though. > **[Javelin throw | Javelin redesigns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javelin_throw#Javelin_redesigns)** > > On 1 April 1986, the men's javelin (800 grams (1.76 lb)) was redesigned by the governing body (the IAAF Technical Committee). They decided to change the rules for javelin design because of the increasingly frequent flat landings and the resulting discussions and protests when these attempts were declared valid or invalid by competition judges. The world record had also crept up to a potentially dangerous level, 104.80 m (343.8 ft) by Uwe Hohn. With throws exceeding 100 meters, it was becoming dif... ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sporting-dominance-that-caused-the-game-to-be-changed/629174/55 "2012-07-25T22:35:40Z")
> [@TheBoltEater](#): > > O…what makes her story so similar to Deion’s is that she arrived at UCLA on March 22nd, 1995, went 17-1 as their starting pitcher (after having missed the first 20 games of the season) and then quit school and went back to her native Australia ten weeks later - just 2 days after the National Championship game - without having taken any finals… _and quite possibly without having ever attended a single class._. Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson had the same stellar academic record at Oregon State (Dennis Erickson’s recruiting standards were a tad flexible). He arrived from junior college, played a season for the Beavers, and immediately declared for the NFL draft, and admitted later he never entered a classroom. However, stories like these aren’t quite in the spirit of the OP. There have always been rules about college athletes maintaining academic eligibility. They’re just not always observed. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sporting-dominance-that-caused-the-game-to-be-changed/629174/56 "2012-07-25T22:59:12Z")
> [@wmulax93](#): > > The NBA made defensive rules much stricter after the Pistons won their last championship. Their run of keeping opponents under 70 points was considered less than entertaining. I’m interested on more info in this. Couldn’t find anything on Wikipedia. ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sporting-dominance-that-caused-the-game-to-be-changed/629174/57 "2012-07-25T23:19:52Z")
After Roy Williams (the safety, not the receiver) was drafted into the NFL, his horse-collar tackling was so brutal that he injured several players, including breaking Terrell Owens’ leg in 2004. The next season, the NFL made that tackle illegal, the so-called “Roy Williams Rule”. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Jeffrey\_Lebowski](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_jeffrey_lebowski/32/215_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Jeffrey\_Lebowski](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Jeffrey_Lebowski)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sporting-dominance-that-caused-the-game-to-be-changed/629174/58 "2012-07-25T23:42:08Z")
Just to follow up - the NBA widened the free throw lane from 6 feet to 12 feet (due to Mikan), and they widened it another 4 feet, to 16, in 1962 (Chamberlain). ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2012, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sporting-dominance-that-caused-the-game-to-be-changed/629174/59 "2012-07-26T00:34:33Z")
> [@kidchameleon](#): > > After Roy Williams (the safety, not the receiver) was drafted into the NFL, his horse-collar tackling was so brutal that he injured several players, including breaking Terrell Owens’ leg in 2004. The next season, the NFL made that tackle illegal, the so-called “Roy Williams Rule”. If I recall (I was a bit young), back in the 1970’s there was also a flurry of rule changes designed to limit the way one could tackle legally. Clothes-lining (a fave play of Dick “Night Train” Lane) and head-slapping/bell-ringing (a favorite of Deacon Jones) were banned because of those players (and others’) use of them. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2012, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sporting-dominance-that-caused-the-game-to-be-changed/629174/60 "2012-07-26T09:49:49Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > Not a rule change, but the Fosbury Flop changed the High Jump for ever. I have a vague memory that a rule change was required. Or at least some track&field officials thought the Flop was illegal. However, the wiki page on the Flop doesn’t mention this, so perhaps my memory is mistaken. The first African-American superstar was [Major Taylor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_Taylor), a bicycle sprinter. I remember reading that he was so dominant that at one point, his compeditors got the format of some races changed. The change was from 2 racers/race to 4 racers/race. This allowed the other three riders to collude to boxing him in and preventing him from riding as fast as he wanted to. The impetus for this change was racism, rather than to make the races fairer, so perhaps is not the kind of change the OP is looking for. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sporting-dominance-that-caused-the-game-to-be-changed/629174.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sporting-dominance-that-caused-the-game-to-be-changed/629174.md?page=4)