lol nit much

LOL

NHL: Be more lenient in regards to the net being knocked out of place. If the puck is in, but the net gets knocked off during the process, it should always be a goal.

soccer:

have 2 referees available:
if both team captains agree that the first one sucks that day, change them.

Not sure of the NHL but in NCAA the ref has discretion to allow a goal in situations like this.

Not sure what an "artificial" rangefinder is, but assuming you mean just any distance measuring device? Why?

How are you supposed to know how far it is to a flag, bunker, other hazard? By just the distances marked on the sprlinklers/in the fairway? What's wrong with having a quicker, more accurate way of measuring distance?


And since we're on golf, not being able to fix spike marks is the dumbest rule in any sport, ever.

Golf: The only people who can report an infraction of the rules are the players, caddies, or tourney officials.

No more rule nit fans watching every second of the tournament on tivo and reporting an after the fact unintentional violation of Rule 3.4.A subparagraph 7.

I completely and utterly disagree with this in every way. Why would you support this?

The chess rule change to make it reasonable is simple: Play Fischer Random Chess (FRC).

Shootouts in soccer are great. They penalize the fact that two teams can't complete the game in regulation time and therefore are subject to an idiotic coinflip to decide their fate.

hmmm, i assumed range finding aids were prohibited

Technically they are, a rule implemented a couple years ago allows for their use if the tournament committee decides to. afaik, pgatour still doesn't allow them

Because it's completely absurd otherwise? What other sport in the world allows anyone watching the game to become a pseudo-official?

Instant replay in sports is pefectly fine, but it needs to be handled by the people participating in and organizing the sport.

It would be like the NFL allowing fans in the stadium or watching at home on TV to trigger a review.

And I'm all for getting a call right, but there is a statute of limitations, usually pretty immediately. You can't really retroactively officiate a game (at least not in a sane world).

so we dont get ******ation like the 13th at quail hollow last week? because fans arent referees?

I totally agree with this. Too much sympathy is given to teams that were too piss poor to get it done earlier.

Same goes for NFL "but whoever gets the ball first wins zomg" ot. its your fault you're in OT.

The fans aren't referees. The officials still make the decision. The fan just alerts them to something they might have missed. All that happens is now the rules get enforced more srtictly and fairly and less stuff gets missed. What is stupid about that?

The NFL analogy is completely irrelevant.

I disagree that allowing fans to participate in being ref assistants makes things more fair, quite the opposite.

Certain players are going to get alot more attention than others, like Tiger Woods who is shown on TV alot is going to be subject to alot more at home fan scrutiny than some no-name who nobody wants to put on tv or watch on the course. It makes fans wanting to see you a huge liability. It's not fair that players who get alot of TV time and fans following them around are subject to significantly more rule scrutiny than an annonymous no-name.

Fans are the most irrational, emotional, and biased things in sports, which is perfectly fine... except when you allow them to become an pseudo-participant in officiating the game.

Wait, its not fair that some players will find it harder to get away with rules violations? Is this for serious??

Agree. Every post-regulation competition should be completely ridiculous. They should involve other sports if possible. For example: MLS playoff game goes into what would be shootouts. Instead, replace shootouts with free throw competitions.

Baseball just forces you to play until someone scores the most runs. The Isner/Mahut marathon tennis match was awesome. Either have the balls to do this, or introduce nonsensical post-regulation competitions.

You do realize that for most of golf's history players did without, right? (And yes, I mean any rangefinder — and I don't think courses should have distance markers, either. But GPS units have made this a much bigger problem than optical rangefinders were.) There are few enough skills tested in golf; let's keep estimating the distance to the pin as one of them.

In amateur golf, allowing rangefinders gives those willing to spend more on equipment an advantage, and in this case that advantage is one that's not central to the game. (For evidence, see my point that most players over the history of the game did without.) In professional golf it takes away a potential way of separating different skill levels. In each case, the availability of the aid reduces the chances that the player who wins is the one who's more skilled, and that's almost always bad for a sport.

It makes fans wanting to watch you a liability only if you would get away with stuff if they weren't. I don't see that being a "huge" liability for many players, and if it is, I would think most people would be in favor of rectifying the situation.

Fans may be irrational and biased (I mean, obviously they are), but my understanding is that they're not deciding the outcome, only pointing out things that actually happened, violations that were actually committed. Is that wrong?

When you phrase it this way, yes, it sounds stupid. I think the real problem is that golf has a lot of really dumb violations that are way overpenalized and can become more of a story than the tournament itself. I don't think anyone would object to someone spotting something on TV if everyone felt it was something that gave them a clear advantage.

I probably should have clarified that one reason for it in baseball is that players would have a strong incentive to play with thicker-handled bats, which would slightly reduce bat speed and thus bring the game back down to earth a bit and imo make it more exciting. At the moment there's zero disincentive to using a fragile bat. Of course, a more direct way of accomplishing the same thing would be to de-juice the ball, or even better, de-juice the players.

In hockey it's not as big a deal because there's already a disincentive to using a fragile stick, so I think I withdraw the suggestion for that sport. I mean, I think it's silly how often players are snapping their fancy graphite twigs, but it doesn't actually detract from the game; in baseball, I think it indirectly does.

If we're talking about the guy moving grass, I think it's fine to give him the 2-stroke penalty regardless of how it was spotting, but for God's sake don't do it after the round is over, that's dumb in any sport. It would be like a baseball team winning 5-4, then being informed that one of their HRs was foul and retroactively being given a loss. Nobody wants that.

Solution: eliminate overtime in all sports. Replay the game right then and there. Repeat until someone wins.

I like that too. But I think an infinite amount of overtime is valid too. Play until there is a goddamned winner.