Some small (and not so small) suggested changes to our major sports leagues

I like watching pro team sports at least as much as the average Joe or Josephine. But there are certain rules and customs that are so antiquated, illogical and downright stupid that’s it’s surprising that they still exist. With the goal of helping these sports improve the pace, image, interest, fairness and/or logic of their game I offer some examples that are ripe for change.

MLB

Let’s start with the uniforms – of the MANAGER and COACHES! I’m all for tradition when it makes any sense but what exactly is the point of having old men “dress up” in the same uniform as the actual PLAYERS? The two managers of this year’s World Series, Brian Snitker and Dusty Baker, are 66 and 72 respectively. And they are young pups compared to Tony La Russa who at 77 will soon need a nurse’s aide to help him get into his costume!

At one time – like a hundred years ago! – there were player-managers. Unless I am missing something these senior citizens have no plans to pinch hit, run or slide during the game. There is also virtually no chance that they will even get dirty (unless you are 72-year old Don Zimmer and planning to take a run at Pedro Martinez). Nor, with the advent of video review challenges, is there a reason any more for the manager to come charging out of the dugout and kick dirt on the umpire, Earl Weaver style. So what exactly is the point of this?

Will the fan viewing experience be hampered if these often obese old men wore nice clothes that actually fit them? You don’t see coaches in ANY other major team sport wear the uniform of the players. Can you imagine looking behind the bench at a hockey game and instead of seeing coaches in a nice sport coat and tie they were decked out in a hockey sweater and shorts – with helmet, gloves, skates and mouthguard to boot? It’s time to put an end to this absurdity. This isn’t Halloween! Ok, it is, but that’s just a coincidence.

It’s also time to put an end for good to the ridiculous time-wasting practice of certain hitters repeatedly stepping out of the box to undo and then reattach their gloves after every single f’ing pitch. Yes that’s you, Jose Altuve. I used to admire you for your ability to compete at an elite level despite your small stature. But your practice of adjusting your pads after every pitch – even after pitches where you don’t even swing (and, well of course, your participation in a blatant sign-cheating scandal) has soured my support for you.

What’s especially absurd is that this practice IS actually against the rules- it’s just ignored. It’s like establishing a strict bedtime for your kids and never enforcing it. Baseball has been struggling to keep up with the Jones of other faster-paced sports and is constantly criticized for it’s slow play and its four-hour plus games. In response it has implemented numerous rules to attempt to speed up the game like a time-clock to deliver a pitch, limitations on mound visits and a three batter minimum for relief pitchers. Yet it incredibly refuses to do anything about what I find is the most annoying feature of watching a baseball game. If they called a strike just once on a player who stepped out of the box for something other than a broken bat or injury from a foul ball it would instantly alter Altuve’s behavior and those like him. There is no reason to continue to cater to the superstitions of the players who engage in such nonsense.

While at it, have you noticed that many players today come to the plate with enough body armor and protective gear to engage in combat warfare? Is that really necessary to protect themselves from getting hit by a ball? And then many have the audacity to just let the ball hit their pads when they could easily get out of the way – some even stick out a pad-covered extremity to ensure they are hit by the pitch. How is that permitted? If players are allowed to wear pads that extend from the natural contours of their body then they shouldn’t be awarded first base when the ball hits those pads. Otherwise, what would prevent a player from wearing a giant bubble wrap suit that extends directly into the strike zone?

The NHL

Then there’s the absurdities of my favorite sport, hockey. My biggest beef actually has nothing to do with the game itself but rather a statistical measure: awarding goals and assists for empty net goals. Does anyone actually believe that a professional hockey player deserves the same credit for shooting a puck into a 6 foot net with NO GOALIE as they do when it is occupied by a heavily padded expert albatross like a 6 foot 10 Ben Bishop? A pee wee hockey player – and even me- could score into an empty net. I suspect that salaries have been altered, records set, awards handed out and incentive bonuses triggered at least in part because of this absurd rule. How exactly does shooting a puck into an uncontested unblocked net reflect a professional players’ value in the least? Pavel Bure once had 9 in a single year. Even the Great Gretzky had 56 empty net goals representing over 6% of all the goals he scored in his career. And it really galls me when teams intentionally trot out a player who has two goals when the goalie has been pulled so he can purportedly score a “hat trick.” Why should that be rewarded as a great achievement or the same as someone who legitimately scored 3 goals? Giving credit for an empty net goal is like saying you had a hole in one in golf when it was actually on a miniature golf course.

Next is my beef with “the fisticuffs” in hockey. How can the NHL sanction fighting in hockey when it’s completely banned in high school and college? I also don’t care for the unwritten “payback” rules where players allegedly “self-police” the game by going after players who injured one of their own – sometimes with devastating consequences (like when the Vancouver Canucks ruined the career and life of 25-year old Harvard grad Steve Moore by chasing him around the rink an entire game and ultimately sucker punching him and driving his head into the ice for accidently injuring their captain in a previous game).

And I’m particularly incensed with the accepted mantra by many hockey purists that if you’re team is losing by multiple goals it helps to start a fight to “change the momentum.” To begin with it’s completely childish and bad sportsmanship. Would we ever tell our kids who are losing a baseball game badly that they should respond to this predicament by beating up the other team’s first baseman? And contrary to frequent announcer/”expert” commentator b.s. rhetoric, it rarely alters the outcome of the game. Sure, sometimes a team that is losing starts a fight and subsequently wins a game. But that’s a random event – sometimes losing teams rally to victory. Far more often a team that is losing badly goes on to lose the game no matter how many fights it gets into thereafter. Getting into a fight does nothing to add goals to your column or subtract goals from your opponent and it puts you at a greater disadvantage if you get an extra penalty for instigating the fight. It may show how badly that you want to win and that you are frustrated. But if it takes a fight to have your guys try harder something is seriously wrong with your players and coaching staff.

I understand how important fighting in pro hockey is to the traditionalists, especially to those from north of the border who firmly (though stupidly) believe that it’s the only way to stop players from “taking liberties.” And I accept that if you banned all fighting from hockey it would undoubtedly reduce the interest in hockey by some small segment of the fan base. But it needs to go.

And then there’s the penalty box itself. That has got to be one of the silliest traditions in sport. Is it really necessary to put a grown man in “time-out” in a special cage so he can appreciate and reflect on his bad behavior? Does the humiliation serve to change his conduct and make him less likely to commit an infraction the next time? Indeed, just like in real life and the prison system, the same fellas tend to be repeat offenders.

And why is accumulating a lot of penalty minutes and putting your team at a disadvantage for an extended time somehow considered to be a good thing? Hockey “experts” often like to trot out a player’s number of penalty minutes as a positive factor when considering the merits of a player or his trade value – like actual goals, assists and +/- rating, . I understand if a player has a lot of penalty minutes it likely means he is tough and fights a lot. But it also means he is likely slow and can’t keep up and, in any case, puts his team shorthanded quite a bit. How is that beneficial when nearly 20% of all goals scored in the NHL occur when a team is a man short?

MLS

Next is soccer – “the world’s most popular game”. I appreciate that the sport takes great skill and endurance and is to some a”beautiful game.” And I know that I will be attacked and shunned by futbol’ traditionalists. But it needs a fundamental re-work because it’s simply too damn hard to score under the current rules. There is also far too often little correlation between outplaying your opponent and actually scoring more goals.

One thing that would undoubtedly open up the game and the number of scoring chances and goals is to eliminate the offsides rule. It’s often visually impossible anyway to see an offensive player’s exact position relative to the last defender at the same time the ball is struck by his teammate 30-70 yards away. Refs aren’t chameleons (the animal with the broadest field of vision). Defenders of the rule sometimes point to hockey that also has an offsides rule and lower scoring games. But there are a lot more goals scored in hockey than soccer (the average total number of goals in the last World Cup was only about 2 1/2 per game, whereas the NHL averages nearly 6 goals per game). More importantly, there are many times more shots on goal and scoring chances in the game on ice – in other words meaningful ACTION. In soccer you watch talented folks pass the ball back and forth to each other with great skill but you typically only see a few legitimate scoring chances in the entire game. I say open up this massive field and let the players stand wherever the hell they want. I am convinced that if you did so that the scoring and excitement of the game would increase significantly.

But the stupidest thing in soccer by far is that tie games are often decided by a penalty kick – and from a mere 12 yards away. Not only is the goalie simply forced to guess where the shooter is aiming but he/she is precluded from even moving (in theory) until after the shooter strikes the ball. What is the possible justification for deciding the outcome in a sport where it’s virtually impossible to score by a contrived format where it’s almost impossible NOT to score? Or where the team’s fortunes often depend on one or more of these accomplished shooters having a mental brain cramp and missing the goal entirely?

I appreciate that there has to be some way to end a game, especially in a sport where it could take hours if not days for someone to break the tie (again, get rid of the damn offsides!). But why not employ some method where the goalie has a fighting chance, like in hockey where goalies actually stop the majority of breakaways. You could move the penalty shot back 5-10 yards. You could have the shooter start at midfield and allow the goalie to come out as much as he/she wants- even greet the shooter at midfield mano v mano. Or you could just continue to play the game of real soccer but with less players (take one player off after every 5- 10 minutes). It’s incredible that soccer sticks with such an absurd way to resolve ties – and one that no one (even traditionalists) like when there are better, fairer and more exciting options available.

The NBA

As for basketball, I have little to gripe about the game rule-wise. I do think though that the NBA has the opposite problem of soccer. As the size and talent level of players has increased exponentially it has made it more difficult than ever to play defense and prevent scoring. But short of raising the height of the basket I’m not sure what the NBA could do to level the playing field between the offense and defense – there is simply no way to stop the elite offensive talent in the league without fouling them (and not calling it).

The NBA also deserves credit for the best and most monumental change to the rules of any major sport with its adoption of the 3-point shot. (It was actually first used professionally by their rival league the ABA though it was purportedly invented by a Puerto Rican teacher, Eddie Ríos Mellado.) It was not part of the origin or tradition of basketball. And yet I think almost all basketball fans would agree that it was a game-changer for the sport. It has created greater interest and excitement and a necessary balance between the value of the insanely tall athlete who can dominate the boards and dunk and the incredibly talented smaller player who can shoot from the moon. Bottom line it shows folks (like the soccer traditionalists) that significant changes can be implemented which can greatly improve the game.

The NFL

Last and certainly least is the NFL – the most financially successful sports league in the world by far. It’s a league where every owner is a billionaire because every team is worth several billion dollars. The reason for that is mostly because of the $111 Billion dollars the NFL collects from TV contracts with every major network. And the primary reason for the game’s immense popularity on TV is gambling – fantasy football leagues and good old fashioned sports wagering now legal in the majority of states. Pretty ironic since the NFL vigorously fought efforts to make sports wagering legal.

But when it comes to the NFL I’m so disgusted with this League that it’s hard to think of any change that should be made other than it should be dismantled, destroyed and replaced. Yes, the League has incredible athletes, none more impressive than the bastion of insanely talented QB’s currently playing. And yes the game can be exciting to watch, at least on TV, and is admittedly fun to bet on.

But the League is owned and run by horrible human beings. These owners let thousands of young men become brain-damaged, and many even kill themselves, by not only hiding evidence of the dangers of concussions but actually propagating fake science that concussions were not harmful. They were able to extricate themselves very cheaply from what could have been a league-ending massive class action lawsuit only because of a legal loophole called the labor preemption doctrine. They have also ruined the in-game football experience in the name of greed – by incorporating time-out after time-out to sneak in more and more commercials, converting a 4-hour experience to only about 12 minutes of actual action! And they have screwed over City after City whose people and fans invested heavily in them, built them stadiums and gave them massive tax breaks, by moving franchises repeatedly whenever the grass looks greener elsewhere. Victims have included millions of loyal followers in St. Louis, Cleveland, Baltimore, Houston, Los Angeles, San Diego, Oakland and St. Louis again. And yet these greedy billionaires have never had to paid a meaningful price for their reprehensible actions (though hopefully that will change when the NFL owners face a jury trial in St.Louis beginning in January!) I have boycotted watching this game because of the SOB’s that run this sport – well at least most of the time.