Baseball:
I hate the balk rule too. The pitcher should be able to do whatever dance he wants, fake as many throws as he can, within a certain amount of time. Its ridiculous
Pool:
Not a real sport but I’ve always hated having to call shots. It should be ok to just hit a ball really hard and hope it goes into a pocket
Golf:
Another fake sport. That whole issue against riding carts over that handicapped golfer from like 10 years ago really soured me on a game I didn’t much like in the first place. Listen golfers, when a “sport” has a seniors tour, when they can compete with guys in their 20’s and 30’s who are in their athletic prime, when normal athletes wind down their off days by playing your “sport”, then no, your sport doesn’t have any athletic requirement and you should stop pretending riding a cart is a big advantage
Yeah, well, it was the one that came to mind - as I had to explain it to the teams last Saturday, as they asked why I just made the losing team kick off after the winning team chose an end. It is pretty obscure though.
I never reffed a game under the ELVs but know a couple who did (at lower levels of play). It didn’t work so well there because the players didn’t have the skill/strength to wrest the ball back and it just became a tug of war with the ball in the middle and it never coming back.
This, ultimately, leads me to another reason why I didn’t delve deeper into the rugby law book; I don’t think the game as constituted works for all levels. I think there are inumerable laws on the book that are not necessary for amateur play - and numerous that need amending to legislate for what professionals do. I don’t think I’d be sorry to see a different set of laws for the pros and a different set for the amateurs (which would lead to the response to the OP being very lengthy!).
I was refereeing when I was a teenager and that’s a long time ago but I’m sure that law used to be - the team that wins the toss can choose which end to play to, or whether to kick off or receive. The other team then decides on the choice remaining.
The way it is worded makes me think that someone thinks they said the same thing but didn’t. I think they meant to say:
*
The winner of the toss decides whether to kick off or choose an end. If the winner of the toss decides to choose an end, the opponents must [decide whether to] kick off and vice versa. *
Otherwise how does vice versa make any sense at all.
I’ll be interested to hear what they have to say too to be honest. You never know, they might actually change the law as a result! (It has been known before - perhaps apocryphally, the law that results in a scrum back at the point where the ball was kicked if it goes over the dead ball line came from a viewer writing to the IRB during the 95 RWC, when kicking the ball over the dead ball line to get a 22m dropout and large amounts of territory was a standard - and very boring - tactic).
I agree with the balk rule concept, in the effort to put on a high quality game. As a fan, I really don’t want to see the pitcher acting like an ass, twitching around like he has some rare African disease. What I don’t like is the huge implications of a barely noticeable motion. It’s a tight game with playoff implications, bottom of the ninth, tying run is on third, the pitcher is staring down the batter, gets set… oops, you moved your glove a half centimeter, game’s tied! It sucks the life out of the game.
Yeah, well that might be the knee jerk reaction. But it doesn’t necessarily happen. And there’s a worked example to demonstrate … (field) hockey.
When I started playing hockey the offside rule required an attacker to have either the ball or three defenders in front of them when in the attacking half. Progressively the provisions were relaxed to the point now there is no offside. You can park any number of attackers where you want them. You can hit a hockey ball a lot further, faster and more accurately than kicking a soccer ball. Also a hockey goalie has far less powers than a soccer goalkeeper defending such a game situation. A recipe for anarchy us fellow defenders thought.
But the result?
For a few weeks everybody thought the long ball option would be el dorado. But it didn’t eventuate. Now no international nor any competent club team plays with the strategy of one (or more) high strikers. Maintaining possession is a far more reliable avenue to goal than hoofing. The number of goals scored per game has barely changed. The way they are scored has barely changed. The midfield zone has elongated. The game is considerably faster. A contentious, game changing rule has been eliminated. The game is much enhanced by it.
There’s absolutely no reason, given the core similarities of the two games (number of players, size of field, positions, goals etc) why the same situation wouldn’t play out with soccer.
So it’s very easy to past the ball far down field and it’s very easy to score while being one on one with the goalie, but it’s a bad strategy? Is it too hard to get the pass off?
I’m not familiar with field hockey, but I very much doubt that it’s similar enough to make grand proclamations like that. I am familiar with soccer and I’ve played plenty of pick up games where there is no offside. Having deep forwards is a winning strategy.
Fouling off a ball isn’t just about not being able to hit a pitch fair. Batters deliberate foul off marginal pitches to force the pitcher to throw a pitch they like better (and to just plain tire them out).
I am probably as familiar with field hockey as Snarky, but I did watch my sister in law play it at the high school level. It was a “hit the ball to the other goal, camp out around goal, lose the ball, get it hit all the way to the other goal, repeat,” type of game. Boring as hell to watch, but then I hear that about soccer/assoc. football all of the time too.
What I would like for soccer instead of offsides, is the equivalent of hockey’s blue line. Get the ball over the line ahead of any of your players, and you’re good. We wouldn’t have to get into the judgement calls—was the player “actively involved”?—that currently determine enforcement of the rule: just figure out whether the ball crossed the line ahead of any other attacking player. Set the line, about 30-40 m away from the goal. Double the distance of the penalty area would be 33 m away, which seems a little close to me.
Agree with getting rid of balks and expanding the strike zone to what the rule book actually says. If we can use electronic determination of balls and strikes, even better.
Get rid of the defenseless receiver rule. If you don’t want your WR obliterated, stop throwing 8 yd slant-ins. Start enforcing helmet-to-helmet on the offensive player. Or just go ahead and welcome our Arena Football overlords, as offense seems to be what the fantasy football-nurturing crowds want these days. For college football, thank Og they got rid of the halo rule. Oh, and any QB that fakes sliding or going out of bounds and then continues to run, gets hit with a 15-yd Unsportsmanlike from the spot of the fake.
Let golfers repair spike marks. Agree with the mention of getting rid of the scorecard signing rule for the PGA Tour. Nerf the damned ball already, before we have to go to an 8,000 yard U.S. Open and eliminate half of the courses from the potential rotation.
As soon as they stop defensive backs from lunging at guys helmet-first, maybe. I agree that the enforcement of some of the helmet-hitting rules has been tough because almost every player lowers his head after getting the ball and the hits can happen so fast that it’s hard to tell when it’s deliberate or avoidable and when it isn’t.
I would argue that “whiners” would be seen as such. If quality players from multiple teams are bashing a single official, well than maybe that official sucks?!
Or maybe the players are going to be unhappy with calls that go against them regardless of whether or not the players are good and regardless of whether the calls are good. This is something it’s hard for players to be objective about, which is why sports have referees in the first place.