Right? This is where the NHL shines over other major sports. They have made radical rules changes over the years to correct problems in the game.
The trapezoid is pretty new. Modern offensive zone rules are scarily new. Watch a hockey game from the early 90s. Then watch one from the early 80s. Then watch one from 2019.
Give Handegg players spiked armor and really encourage deep and dirty tactics. Free substitutions at any time and keep medical staff on hand, but otherwise letās make this a bloodbath.
They made a very small but significant step towards fixing it.
As much as I like Blood Bowl, spiked armor is very impractical for storage and even movement.
I post this in fix a sport because I think it is crazy that in golf, players are not all forced to use the same exact ball, and the balls are not supplied by the tour. I know they do it because a lot of money comes from ball manufacturers, so they are just as sponsored as clubs and clothes and such. But thereās a lot of competitive integrity that goes out the window when each player can use whatever ball they want, even within regulated limits.
What? Itās not like other players have to use your balls. Why shouldnāt they be able to use whatever legal equipment they want?
In tennis you get to use your own racket. Then every tournament supplies the balls. The exact balls a chosen with lots of factors in mind, like the air density, playing surface, humidity and gender of the players.
I could see the same thing happening in golf. Every tournament picks a ball good for that events, and every player is given a batch on the day of play. If the balls were branded with the event logo or whatever, it would be trivial to check if the player had something different.
Both players have to hit the same tennis ball. Youāre the only one using your own in golf.
It would be like the tennis tournament picking everyoneās racket for them.
I actually think that would be more fair. Weāre seeing lots of imbalances due to equipment. Itās most prominent in cars in racing, but now were seeing problems with bathing suits in swimming and shoes in marathons. Give everyone the same exact thing, adjusted for size and shape of their body.
What are to testing for? What are the trade offs?
In American football, the teams play with balls they bring themselves. The teams with better ball experts have an advantage over those that donāt, even though those that donāt still have to play with the same ball (while on defense).
I think itās crazy that American football teams bring their own balls, but thatās because I know soccer better, and there each league or tournament picks a ball for the whole season or event.
So do you want a sport where individuals pick the best for themselves, which might be different between players?
Or do you want a sport where events pick what is best for the event? Again tennis balls for clay are different than for grass. For humid conditions different to indoor events.
With golf, maybe some tournaments want a deader ball to offset club technology making sand traps obsolete as normal balls fly over. Maybe they want further flying balls to speed up play and have less time on the fairway.
Thereās not an obvious right or wrong answer, but where the equipment control lies makes a big difference, and canāt be dismissed just because the sport happens to have done the same for years.
Itās like saying āmy opponent doesnāt hit my ten pins, so Iāll not only bring my own bowling ball but also my own pins!ā
Bowling doesnāt work like that! But it could work like that at the highest level. The biggest stars would have a truck with 20 pins and an equipment card teamā¦ nah, the trade offs arenāt worth it for the event organizers not the player.
Thatās fair enough Luke. But about American football balls - where did you get that idea? The NFL and college both specify an official model from Wilson or whatever. Everyone uses that for the season.
My original issue was with Scottās comment about competitive integrity. Itās a rule. Every pro knows it. Itās not like the validity of a tournament is undermined by letting players have their preferred gear.
And making every runner wear the same shoes! Thatās ludicrous!
Yes, every NFL team uses the āsameā ball, but thatās not my point. The equipment managerās job is to keep track of every ball used, and make sure the quarterbacks have ātheirā ball for every play. They literally make sure the ball is worn in enough for the grip level to be perfect.
Hereās the kind of thing Iām talking about:
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/24/sports/football/eli-mannings-footballs-are-months-in-making.html
It taking months for a quarterback to be happy with a specific ball is a HUGELY different to soccer, where each match there are maybe 10 balls for the duration, and nobody from the team gets to āprepareā them in any way. There is no Deflate-gate style things possible.
Not behind a paywall:
" Litzsingerās work starts in March each year, when he receives 30 six-ball cases from Wilson and begins the long process of selecting the worthy candidatesāeach ball is handmade, and therefore differentāand preparing them for play. That means soaking and scrubbing the ball to the point where the protective wax is removed but the valuable nubs remain. Thatās just the basic explanation though. Litzsinger has also worked out ways to control the ballās color, shape and stickiness. "
Sure, doctoring them up or whatever. But itās not like the Rams picked high-spin balls and the Chargers want one that bounces really high or something.
Also deflategate was a joke. Roger Goodell is incompetent.
NFL should be forced to use brand new balls. Look at baseball. Forgetting whether the balls are juiced or not, they take a ball out of play if it just gets scuffed a bit.
Theyāre not brand new in baseball. Theyāre rubbed down almost exactly like the footballs.
MLB Rule 4.01(c), which states that all baseballs shall be āproperly rubbed so that the gloss is removed.ā
Also, a scuffed ball gives you so much more action on a breaking pitch. It would dramatically shift the competitive balance toward the pitcher.
Look, Iām not saying the NFL is wrong to let teams break in the balls in a way thatās perfect for their quarterback.
What Iām saying is that there are tradeoffs in both directions. You have to consider the tradeoffs when designing or fixing a sport. Like that article says, it used to be that each home team provided the balls for the entire game, and that benefitted the home team with the QB with the big hands. And then they FIXED THE SPORT by changing who provides the balls.
Is golf ābrokenā in such a way that the rules about who provides the balls needs fixing? I personally donāt see it as a big issue. But there are considerations on both sides, and you canāt reflexively say something should be the way it is because itās the way it is. Especially when the examples Iāve posted here show how sports DO change these kinds of rules, so the way it isnāt always the way it stays.
I buy it. We are fixing sports here after all.
The point is all regulation baseballs get the mud rub in a standard way so that the ball is a non-factor between games within a season. I could care less about football in general but league control over balls seems like something that would be an improvement plus it would give fans another thing to complain at refs/the league about if they were responsible for balls.
Interesting recap of the Nike Vaporfly, the shoe you may or may not have heard about breaking running records lately:
I think theyāre fine. The mass-market requirement is a good rule though.