In basketball the 3-point shot was supposed to bring MORE offense to the game. The facts show that scores have dropped dramatically since it was implemened. I remember the days when the Celtics used to AVERAGE 125 points a game. They even set the game scoring record at 173 points IN ONE GAME! All without the 3 pointer. They even changed the rules on travelling "carrying"
and "palming" to accomodate the superstars. Actually they didn't CHANGE the rules they just don't enforce them. And that "hop-step" on a drive to the basket is just "schoolyard basketball" and shouldn't be tolerated in the NBA, not to mention "up and down" which is rarely called. Remember the last 60 seconds of game seven of the Celtics-Lakers championship series a few years ago? Pau Gasol went up, under the basket, his feet clearly leaving the floor, and got stuffed, came back down then went up again, scored and was fouled. The Celtics should have had the ball out of bounds and the basket nullified. Instead the Lakers got three unearned points which turned the tide of the WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP GAME. The referees were never taken to task for the non-call.
The cry DID go out that a foul, whether in the first minute of play or the last, is still a foul, all to no avail. And the NBA still does nothing about the referees or their selective calls. Doesn't anybody remember that Wilt Chamberlain NEVER fould out of a game or, for that matter, LeBron James will never foul out of another NBA game (the way referees are protecting him.) Of course it's because television people want his marquis name on the court as much as possible.
Speaking of refereeing, nobody seems to pay any attention to the Super Bowl game between Baltimore and the 49ers two years ago. The team of referees chosen by the NFL powers, surely under the watchfull eye of TV bosses, was selected because they called far fewer penalties than any other team and they "wanted the boys to play the game with few penalties." (Their words, not mine.) (Less penalties mean quicker games, more revenue) Even a "casual" fan knew that Baltimore was a "rowdy and rough" team and that would give them a huge benefit over the 49ers. The results speak for themselves. Baltimore had several calls (or non calls) go in their favor changing the outcome of the game and robbing the 49ers of a championship. Why didn't they complain to the media?? It's against NFL rules and they would have been fined, VERY heavily.
So much for criminally poor refereeing. Again, TV is lobbying to the public to change baseball. They have been fiddling around with instant replays and, now, electronic strike zones, but the real target is to get the games shortened. THAT would give THEM more air space to sell more ads, which would give THEM more money. Of course the baseball commissioner is in their corner. They hold the purse strings and, as we all know the golden rule, he with the gold, rules.
The claim. by non-baseball people (TV, of course) is that the game is getting boring because it's getting too long. Let me remind you, there is no timeclock in baseball for a reason. The game is only to be decided by strategies that have no time constraints. You might as well put in a "mercy clause" that ends a game in the seventh inning if a team is behind by 10 runs.
STRATEGIES...that's the key word. The managers have gotten into a mode of always playing the percentages and that cuts out an awful lot of options to score runs. Scoring runs is what makes the game exciting not the homeruns. If your team is ahead or behind by ten runs are you excited by a homerun? But if your manager uses EVERY possible way to produce runs...THEN you have much more excitement in the game, ANY GAME, because you just might be able to come from behind AND WIN. That's the Impossible Dream and everyone wants to be on hand to see the EXCITING finish!
Now, here's the key to making a game exciting...UN-PREDICTABILITY. Remember the 1967 Red Sox "Impossible Dream" season. Manager Dick Williams used every possible way to score runs and everybody loved it. One of the most exciting plays Williams put in was the double steal with runners on first and third which usually resulted in a run. He had a few variations of it, sometimes NOT sending the runner home but, just the threat of the play set the visitors on their heels and the fans on the edges of their seats. NOBODY went for beer or the restroom when the Sox were at bat. THAT'S excitement for you, as in the final, deciding game of the '67 season.
All Sox fans remember, when the team was down by 2 runs to the Twins in the 6th inning of that game, pitcher Jim Lonborg led off the inning with a surprise bunt single and that ignited the fans, and the team, to score the runs that won the game putting them in the world series. Excitement is the result of something happening that was unexpected. Like a big surprise. Get it?
Baseball can be the most exciting game on Earth if both teams used every strategy possible to score runs. There are about 15 different things that can happen on each pitch and that doesn't include strategies and counter strategies by each manager, especially with runners on base. There are actual "fans" out there who don't know what a "suicide squeeze" is, or even just a plain squeeze play, because they practically never see it. Anybody ever see a delayed steal or even a "go and stop" steal of second base? (when trying to bring home a runner from third base.)
In that deciding game of the '67 season, with the Twins down by two, Jim Lemmon hit a drive to Yaz in left that was about to score a run. Instead of throwing to the plate to possibly cut down the run, (conventional wisdom) Yaz gunned down the batter trying to go to second (and scoring position for the potential tying run). The crowd went wild because NOBODY, expecially not the hitter, expected Yaz to throw to second base. UNPREDICTABLE...just the potential of something that's unexpected is EXCITING. That season the Sox won so many games by coming from behind in the last inning that they were called "The Cardiac Kids," and they earned it. Nobody ever left their seats at Fenway Park until the FINAL OUT. It was three years before that practise finally subsided.
Hockey is another sport that's being changed. Many fans still can't figure out the points a team gets for tying or losing a shootout. A SHOOTOUT!! Why not start a new sport that's ALL shootouts. Sure, they're exciting, but it's NOT HOCKEY. Seventy five minutes of superb, exciting, two-way hockey is negated by ONE SHOT that just might be luck?? Entire strategies change at the end of regulation, or even overtime, just for that shootout. What can be more exciting than sudden death overtime in hockey, even if it runs for three (or more) 20 minute periods. The players union objecting to the extra work for no more pay? Let TV, with their extra commercials, pay bonuses to the players involved. OR come out with some other solution INSTEAD of this #*&%$ shootout. It just ain't hockey!
Another little note (criticism) for this new age "media in diapers" that never even saw Bobby Orr play hockey...stop making such a big to do about goalies who play more than 3 or 4 games in a row saying, "It's just too "taxing" both physically and mentally." I recently asked six sportsshow hosts from that generation if they knew what the record was for consecutive games in goal by one man.
None of them knew "for certain" but all guessed somewhere between 100 to 150. How wrong can you be. This is one that they all should know...It's 502 consecutive games by Glenn Hall of the Chicago Blackhawks from 1955-62. When I told them they all cried, "That's ancient history or that's before my time." (Two didn't even believe me saying that was too incredible and impossible). Well that's what you're being paid for, boys. To inform your listeners and, maybe along the way, show that you know a little bit about your sport. THAT will bring more excitement to your game reporting and the sports you represent. Then maybe the games won't be so boring and we won't have to put up with these constant proposals to speed up baseball. Just leave it alone...and enjoy it.....
Call me a "purist" but baseball, and the other major pro sports, didn't get where they are by constantly changing things on a whim from people who just want constant change. They say you can't have progress without change, and I agree. BUT, not all change is progress and, before we start trying to "make things better" you'd better learn the difference. Study your sports' history.
It's been written many times, and not just about sports, "That you can't know where you're going if you don't know where you've been." "Nuf said.....
Coming soon...Patriots and Celtics draft day picks.....Stay tuned