Moving the Chains: 90% Air … and other Impracticalities

MagicLudwig1@gmail-com

‘Trees are 90% air.’

According to Arnold Palmer, anyway.  

By that he meant there’s a high probability of hitting a golf ball directly through the branches of a tree since most of its mass comes from the carbon dioxide in the air.  

If your name is Arnold Palmer, that may be true.  For everyone else, it’s just not practical.  

Case in point: when I was on my high school golf team, I followed Arnie’s advice.  Rather than becoming the next Arnold Palmer, I butchered so many trees I came close to being the next Paul Bunyan.  

Long story short: Palmer’s observation didn’t make sense – just like some other things in the world of sports.

For example, why is a basketball court 94 feet long?  Why not an even 100?

OK, that was more of a rhetorical question than anything else.  Besides, who cares?  Let’s take it up a notch.

Now that the average player in the NBA is 6’7” tall, which is 4 inches taller than the average player was in 1950, why is the goal still at the same height?  At one time dunking the ball was the exception, not the rule – as it is now.  Players making baskets 90% of the time, as they do by dunking the basketball, doesn’t seem very challenging.      

Taking it a step further, if offensive goaltending is touching the basketball anytime it is inside the rim, shouldn’t it be defensive goaltending if the ball is touched anytime it is above the rim?  Serious question: how is it even remotely fair that a jump shot 12 feet in the air can be swatted away like a fly?  

And why can basketball players call a timeout while airborne and falling out of bounds?  Shouldn’t they have at least one foot on the court at the time?  

Speaking of feet inbounds, let’s move along to football.  Why does the Super Bowl start at a time (6:40 p.m.) that NO OTHER GAME starts during the course of the regular season?  Is it fair that the participating teams have to adjust their pre-game rituals on Super Bowl Sunday to accommodate a kickoff time they’re not accustomed to?  And surely those ridiculously long halftime shows disrupt the flow of the game in some way.  

And why aren’t video reviews used for the single most arguable call the sport has to offer: pass interference (or the lack thereof)?

And why doesn’t the NFL eliminate the new ‘dynamic kickoff’ that has taken away the element of surprise for onsides kicks, not to mention taking away the excitement generated by the way kickoffs were conducted since the dawn of civilization?  

 And why does college football still allow that ridiculous ‘down without contact’ rule?  Why make an innocent slip as punitive as a devastating tackle? 

And if an official is figuratively part of the field and therefore dropping the football when colliding with an official is considered a fumble, why can’t contact with the ground – which is literally part of the field – cause one, too?

And seriously, NFL: SEVENTEEN games?  On what planet besides earth do they play an odd number of games during the regular season?

And why are the NFL (as well as the NCAA) trying different things to speed up the game – which have continually demonstrated to do just the opposite?   I remember when games were over in three hours.  Today they’re lucky to finish in four.

Speaking of games that drag on for too long, it’s time to address Major League Baseball. 

Why do baseball managers wear the same uniforms as the players on their team?   It’s not like that in other sports.  You don’t see Andy Reid standing on the sidelines wearing shoulder pads and a helmet or John Calipari sitting on the team bench wearing a pair of shorts. 

Speaking of wearing shorts, why does tennis use 15 – 30 – 40 – game as a scoring system and not 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 (or game)?   Why complicate things?  And how come players get second serves?  That’s like giving a professional golfer a mulligan, a kicker another try after a miss. or a batter another swing after strike three.      

And if boxers can talk to their trainers between rounds and golfers can talk to their caddies between shots, why can’t tennis players talk to their coaches during a match?  

Switching gears, fans pay good money to watch sporting events.  They should be allowed to cheer as they see fit. That should include tennis, golf, and bowling.  Why should they be any different from baseball, football, and basketball?  Why can’t a fan who paid good money to watch yell ‘shank it’ on Brooks Koepka’s backswing?   

In soccer, who is responsible for keeping track of the time – and why it is always kept a secret?  It seems to me that more than one person – I have to assume it’s one of the officials on the field – should know how much time is left in the game.  Like the fans, for example.     

By the way, if there’s any sport that needs someone to keep track of the time, it’s baseball.  Why not just say that whichever team is ahead after a certain amount of time has elapsed should be declared the winner?  All of the other team sports have time limits on their games.  For basketball it’s 48 minutes and for football it’s 60.  But for baseball, it’s until the cows come home.    

Ninety minutes for a baseball game sounds reasonable.  That’s 10 minutes per inning.  If the game is tied at that point, the two coaches could meet on the mound for a quick game of rock/paper/scissors to decide the winner.  That way, at least it would add a little excitement to a game that otherwise moves along at the pace of a glacier.   

Then again, if you enjoy watching two teams chew sunflower seeds, spit tobacco, and adjust their batting gloves (and/or crotches) a bazillion times – in between the 10 or 11 minutes of actual action in a game – baseball is the sport for you. 

Although, let’s be serious: it’s not very practical.