Change isn’t always good
Spring is in the air this week and, although it might prove to be a false spring, with it comes the feeling that change is in the air.
What one wonders is if some of the proposed changes we’re hearing in the world of sports might prove to be as false as spring in February.
Change is a good thing. It gives the chance for new growth and to avoid the mistakes of the past. But change just for the sake of it is often a fool’s errand. So it seems with some of the recently proposed changes to “improve’’ the games we love.
Baseball, for example, seems to believe it is a sport from another time when people actually had an attention span longer than a fruit fly’s, and so it must bastardize itself. Back when baseball rather than Snapchat was our national passion, fans would follow a season closely, watching it slowly develop without crying that there were too many games.
We would sit in the stands and actually talk to each other about the game rather than be verbally assaulted every moment the game itself wasn’t going on by music, videos, orchestrated cheering sessions and cellphones demanding to know your latest Facebook status.
If a game went extra innings, it was not considered an inconvenience. It was something to pay special attention to because decisions had to be made, bullpens carefully managed, pinch hitters used. Who do you bring in when? How long before someone is out of options? If some have their way today, however, it will go no more than one extra inning. Got to get back on Instagram, you know? That is the thrust of a proposal to put a runner on second base to start any extra inning. This has been used in international games for some time and now will be tried in the low minors. To its credit, the Players Association already has said it will not allow the game to be polluted in this way at the major league level, but many are embracing the idea, insisting they are too busy to watch extra innings.
Really? Doing what? You Tubing on your watch?
If you’re that busy, why not just flip a coin?
Hockey already has adopted the 3-on-3 overtime period, opening up the ice in hope of avoiding shootouts, which are glorified batting practice although an exciting version of it. OK, that creates more scoring opportunities, but why not put the goalies back in pads that aren’t the length of the Florida coastline and the width of Texas and decide the game playing real hockey instead?
In pro football, the hue and cry from some corners is that the overtime rule must change because Super Bowl LI was the first to be decided in OT and the Falcons never got the ball. Some fans insisted they were ill-served by this (they bet on Atlanta, I assume).
They saw it as unfair, and we can’t have that. I saw it as play some defense and you get the ball. If not, you die, which is why they call it sudden death, not sudden victory.
There are those who feel some grave injustice was visited upon the Falcons. What injustice? They gave up five straight scores. If you can’t stop your opponent, why should you be rewarded with a second chance to keep the game going?
Some argue the Super Bowl was decided by a coin flip, but the truth is it was decided by a Falcons coaching staff that didn’t know how to win with a 25-point lead and an offense that chose to try and keep scoring when all it need do was keep the ball. That doesn’t require a change in the rules. It requires common sense, which as these proposals make clear is in short supply.
Golf also is in the mix with the ISPS Handa World Super 6 recently concluded in Perth, Australia, with a similar format set for play on the European Tour. In this format, the first three rounds are a normal 54hole tournament but the top 24 players then play a series of six-hole knockout matches on Sunday to determine the champion. If two players were tied after six holes in Perth they went to a specially built 90-yard knockout hole and played it until someone was eliminated.
So the goal after 54 holes was simply to be in the top 24 because then you start fresh in the Sunday knockout matches. The idea is these abbreviated knockouts will keep the millennial set’s short attention span engaged, especially if the whole thing comes down to a showdown on a knockout hole.
In Europe, the GolfSixes will debut in early May at the Centurion Club in England, a two-man team event with 16 teams playing their own tee shot and then alternate shots on the six holes. If two teams are tied after six, they go to a knockout hole. The theory is this will quicken the game, eliminate players faster and add high drama on the knockout hole capable of holding the attention of those born into the Internet age.
It ain’t exactly golf, and it ain’t exactly sudden death, but it’s a lot more sudden death than traditional stroke play. But is it golf?
Good question, but these days who cares? If baseball is ready to start an extra inning with a guy on second base who didn’t earn the right to be there in order to finish the game faster, it’s not baseball either.
Purists might not like it, but look at the bright side. These games will be done in time to stream three episodes of “The Man in the High Castle” on Amazon Prime before bed.