rules Archives - Page 3 of 9

How does the NFL Supplemental Draft work?

Dear Sports Fan,

I recently posted this question on Fancred, “Raise your hand if you understand the supplemental draft at all.” Barely anyone raised their hand, and we’re all sports fans on Fancred! Can you help? How does the NFL Supplemental Draft work?

Thanks,
Jake N.

Dear Jake N.,

Hey Jake — I think I can help. Every spring, the NFL holds an entry draft for any player who has played at least two years of football since high school and would like to play in the NFL. This is a giant event with over 200 players selected and many more who declared themselves eligible for selection but who were not picked. When a team picks a player in the draft, it means that they have the exclusive right to negotiate and sign a contract with that player. No other team can try to sign them. Players who don’t get picked become free agents and are able to negotiate with any team that wants them, and indeed, many of them get signed, albeit to shorter, less lucrative contracts. Every year though, there are a few players who slip through the cracks. Either they intended to be in the draft but messed up their paperwork or, at the time they needed to make the decision, they wanted to stay in college for another year, but since then, something has changed in their life. This change could be a life event – a death in the family, an expected child, or it could be something more salacious, like having become academically ineligible for another year at college or getting in trouble with the law. The Supplemental Draft, held in July, is a chance for players who missed the draft but have a qualifying reason (the NFL decides) to enter the NFL this year, to be chosen by teams.

The Supplemental draft is a reasonably simple procedure but it’s badly named. It works much more like a blind auction than a draft. The first thing that happens is that an order of teams is established. All the NFL teams are divided into three groups: teams that won six or fewer games last year, teams that won more than six games but didn’t make the playoffs, and teams that made the playoffs. Within each group, a random drawing is done to establish an order. Once the order is set, teams can make bids on eligible players. This year there are seven eligible players. Teams bid on players by declaring a number from one to seven. These numbers are meant to be the equivalent of the round in the normal draft the team would have selected the player if they had been the normal draft. Of course, as with most elements of sport, there’s no obligation to be truthful. Teams bid whatever they think will work, not what they actually would have done. Once all the bids are in on a player, the team which claimed they would have drafted the player in the earliest round (1st is better than 2nd is better than 3rd and so on) gets the right to negotiate with that player. If there are two or more teams with the same bid, the team that is earlier in the order gets the player.

The reason why the numbers correspond to draft rounds, instead of being totally arbitrary, is that there is a cost for winning a supplemental draft bid. When a team drafts a player through the supplemental draft, they lose the equivalent round draft pick in next year’s normal NFL entry draft. This is a fairly big cost, considering that the pool of players to choose from is so much bigger in, say the fourth round of next year’s draft compared to the handful of players in the supplemental draft. As such, teams virtually never bid very high for players in the supplemental draft and in many years, the draft comes and goes without a single player being picked. The only exception to this rule is firmly an element of the NFL’s history, not its present. In the mid-1980s, a couple players used the supplemental draft as a means of controlling which team they ended up with. This loophole, most famously used by Bernie Kosar to get to the Cleveland Browns and by Brian Bosworth to avoid the Indianapolis Colts and Buffalo Bills, was firmly closed in 1990.

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

How do suspensions in soccer work?

Dear Sports Fan,

Can you explain to me how Clint Dempsey was supposedly suspended from games but is starting tonight? I’m confused. How do suspensions in soccer work?

Thanks,
Brian Cadavid

Dear Brian,

As we now know, Clint Dempsey did play in last night’s Gold Cup match between the United States men’s national team and Honduras. It’s a good thing for the team that he did, too, because he scored the team’s two goals on their way to a 2-1 victory. It was a bit of a surprise though. Last night’s game was played less than a month after Dempsey was thrown out of a game he was playing for his club team, Major League Soccer’s Seattle Sounders, after grabbing a referee’s notebook out of his hands and tearing it up.

This violation, as silly as it seems, by the letter of the rules, qualifies as assaulting the ref. A violation of this type is supposed to come with a minimum of a six game suspension. If Clint Dempsey had received a six or more game suspension for assaulting the referee, he would have been banned from taking part in any official soccer while serving the six game suspension. Since the Sounders only had three games between Dempsey’s infraction and last night’s USMNT game against Honduras, a six game ban would have excluded Dempsey from participating. SB Nation’s Sean Steffen wrote a post about this logic before the ruling had been handed down. When the ruling came, it was a major surprise: only three games. As Doug McIntyre wrote for ESPN, “It’s good to be a big-name star like Clint Dempsey in Major League Soccer.” Crisis averted – Dempsey would be able to play in the Gold Cup.

The way that this suspension worked is the exception, not the rule in global soccer. In the vast majority of leagues, and even in the MLS for non-assault based infractions, yellow cards, red cards, and suspensions that a player receives do not bleed over into other forms of competition. This is important because soccer players, way more than players in any other sport, play in different competitions simultaneously. In the course of a month, a player may play for a national team and for his or her club team in a league game and in one or more cup or tournament games. For example, Clint Dempsey was playing in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup when he earned that red card. His team’s next game was a normal MLS league game. And then, as we know, he went and played for the national team. The same trichotomy exists, perhaps even more, for players who play in European club soccer. Each league and cup and tournament has its own rules about suspensions. Although they are all quite similar, thanks to the octopus-like international soccer organization, FIFA, when it comes to suspensions, they each have mostly separate jurisdictions. A yellow card picked up in the Champions League does not carry over into the British Premier League or Spain’s La Liga. A suspension a player gets during an international game for their country usually only pertains to international games.

The fact that if Clint Dempsey had been suspended for six games for his “assault” on a referee, his suspension would have applied not just to games played for the Seattle Sounders but also to games played by the U.S. men’s national team is the exception that proves the rule. Most suspensions in soccer only apply to the form of soccer being played when the player commits the act that gets him or her suspended.

Thanks for your question,
Ezra Fischer

What is a force play in baseball or softball?

Dear Sports Fan,

What is a force play in baseball or softball? I’m new to watching and it seems like force is an important concept but I’ve yet to here a good explanation. Can you help?

Thanks,
Caroline

Dear Caroline,

The force play is one of the most integral concepts in baseball and softball. Without an understanding of it, not much in the game will make sense. Unfortunately, because most baseball broadcasts assume that all of their viewers grew up playing or watching baseball or softball, there aren’t commonly explanations of what a force play is or what its implications are. A force play is a kind of short-hand; a convenience that the defense or fielding team gets to use against the team that’s trying to score. In some situations, instead of having to tag the opposing player with the ball to make an out, a defensive player with the ball can step on a base and immediately create an out. The reason for this convenience is predicated on a single concept – two base runners can never occupy the same base at the same time.

How do we make the leap from two players not being able to be on the same base at the same time to being able to get someone out just by stepping on a base? Let’s run through a scenario where there is no force play available to the defense. Imagine that there is a base runner on second base but not first or third. When the player that is batting hits the ball into the field, he has to run to first. The player on second can either stay on second base or run to third. He starts running and then sees that the opposing team has a chance to throw the ball to third before he can get there. If he keeps running, he’s likely to get tagged by the player with the ball before he can make it safely to third. So, he turns around and runs back to second base. If he can make it back there without being tagged, he’s safe. He has options – second or third base. Either one is a safe haven. There is no possible force out.

Now we’ll take a similar scenario but add in a force play. Imagine everything were the same except that instead of having only a runner on second base, there was also a runner on first base when the batter hit the ball. The batter still has to run to first base. But wait! There’s a runner already there. If he stays put, there will be two runners on first base — and we know that’s not allowed. So, the runner on first base has to run to second. Now our runner on second base faces the same dilemma. He has to run to third or else he and his teammate who started the play on first base will both be occupying the same base. So, he starts running to third. The fielding team makes the same play and throws the ball to the defender on third base. The guy running from second to third sees that he’s in trouble but unlike in our first scenario, he can’t turn around and run back to second base. He has teammates already on first and second base, so he can’t run backwards. He has to run forward.

In an imaginary baseball world without the force play rule, the defender standing on third base with the baseball would wait for the runner to get to him and then step forward to tag him with the ball. This would work close to 100% of the time because the runner has no options other than to run straight into the defender. In effect, the outcome of the play is set by the time the defender gets the ball on third base. The out is fait accompli. Instead of waiting for the inevitable, baseball created the force out rule. If a runner has no option but to run forward to a base, and a defender can get to that base with the ball before the runner does, it’s immediately an out.

This seemingly small convenience has widespread tactical consequences. The double-play, one of the most exciting plays in baseball, when the defense records two outs on a single hit, would be drastically less possible without the force out. The most common double play, one where there is a runner on first when the batter hits the ball and the defense is able to get the ball to second base, step on it, and then throw the ball to first base before the guy who hit the ball can get there, relies entirely on force plays or outs. If the defense had to wait for the runner on first to get to second before being able to get him out, they’d never have enough time to throw the ball to first before the batter got there.

Here are the two scenarios we described above:

Scenario 1: Home plate [•] First base [ ] Second base [•] Third base [ ]

Scenario 2: Home plate [•] First base [•] Second base [•] Third base [ ]

Can you figure out where the force plays are in these other scenarios?

Scenario 3: Home plate [•] First base [ ] Second base [ ] Third base [•]

Scenario 4: Home plate [•] First base [•] Second base [ ] Third base [•]

Scenario 5: Home plate [•] First base [•] Second base [•] Third base [•]

If you answered – first base for scenario three, third base for scenario four, and first, second, and third base and home plate for scenario five, you’re well on your way to being a baseball and softball force play expert! Here are two bonus facts you might also have picked up on. First base is always a force out. It’s not intuitive because there are no runners moving behind the batter, but nonetheless, once he hits the ball, he has to move to first base. He cannot simply stay at home plate and try again next time. The other bonus fact is a pretty advanced tactical one. In terms of force outs, it’s sometimes better defensively to have more players on base. Referring again to our first two scenarios, the defense may not have been able to get anyone out in the first one, but definitely would have been able to in the second. This goes against what seems to be the normal logic of playing defense in baseball — you want fewer people on base not more. In some situations, teams will intentionally walk a batter to get more runners on base so that they create more force play opportunities during the next at bat.

Thanks for your question,
Ezra Fischer

How does stealing bases work in baseball?

Dear Sports Fan

How does stealing bases work in baseball? I know that a stolen base is when a player runs from first to second or second to third base without there being a hit but I’m not sure when base runners can steal and what situations they do it in. Can you help?

Thanks,
Andres

Dear Andres,

The steal is one of the most exciting plays in baseball. A player on base tries to run to the next base without the assistance of a teammate’s hit. If he gets there before the opposing team can throw the ball to the base and tag him, he’s safe. If not, he’s out. It’s got speed, deception, timing, and coordination — everything you could want in a sport. A successful stolen base can propel a team to victory. An unsuccessful one can break a team’s momentum and destroy its chance of winning. So how does a steal work?

A player on base — that means they got to first, second, or third base through hitting the ball, being hit with the ball, or being walked — can try to run to the next base basically whenever they want. The only time they are not allowed to run is if a timeout has been called. Timeouts are not as obvious in baseball as they are in other sports, probably because they are unlimited, but they usually happen when a batter steps out of the batting box and holds up his hand or when a catcher wants to speak to his pitcher or visa-versa. If you’re at a game or if you have your television volume way, way up, you might be able to hear the ump screaming, “TIME” when someone gestures for a timeout and “PLAY” when the timeout is over. In some recreational baseball or softball leagues, a timeout is called by default whenever the pitcher has the ball. Not so in a professional setting.

The fact that base runners can try to steal virtually whenever they want doesn’t explain much about when players actually attempt to steal. Professional baseball players throw so accurately and strongly that unless a runner caught them completely off-guard, stealing in the normal course of play would be a miserable and ineffective gambit. No, what makes stealing possible is a rule that forces pitchers to throw the ball to home plate once they’ve committed to the motion of throwing in that direction. A pitcher who is guilty of starting to throw to home plate and changing his or her mind in mid-pitch is guilty of what’s called a “balk” and any players already on base get a free trip to the next base. The impact of this rule is that it allows sharp eyed, speedy players on base to watch the pitcher and start running to the next base as soon as the pitcher commits to a pitching motion.

Once a player decides to steal a base, she begins sprinting to the next base. She only has a few seconds to make it there. In that time, the pitcher will pitch the ball over home plate, the catcher will grab it, rise to his feet, and throw to the player covering the base the runner is trying to get to in one motion. The whole thing – running from one base to the next as well as the pitcher and catcher combining to try to throw that player out – takes right around 3.5 seconds. In a Smithsonian Magazine piece, Brad Balukjian describes an analysis of the process that suggested the most important factor in a successful stolen base is the top speed a runner reaches in his attempt.

By far the most common base players try to steal is second base. There are a few reasons for this:

Singles are by far the most common hit. Therefore being on first base is more common than being on any other base. From first, the only place to go is second.
While there are more lefties in professional baseball than in the general population, there are still more right-handed pitchers than left-handed ones. When a righty sets up to pitch, his back is turned to first base. This gives the base runner an advantage stealing from first to second but a disadvantage going from second to third.
As we covered in out article explaining why there are so few triples any more, there simply isn’t that big of a difference between being on second or third. Runners on either base are expected to be able to score on a ball hit out of the infield and not on one that stays in close. Stealing third isn’t often worth the risk. The difference between being on first or second, on the other hand, is a big deal and worth a greater risk.

While the rules about how and when a player can steal a base are fairly simple the rules about when their act is deemed to be an official steal by scorekeepers is much more complex. While it may not seem important (no matter how it happened, what matters to who is going to win is that the player made it from first to second or second to third) baseball players, managers, and true fans give statistical designations like this a lot of importance. Just one example of these distinctions is that a player who makes it safely to a base because the catcher threw the ball wildly in her attempt to catch the runner stealing is credited with a steal while a player who safely gets to the next base because the opposing player who was trying to catch the ball and tag him out messed it up, he is not credited with a steal.

Aside from stealing second from first and third from second, there are three other forms of stealing that are much more rare. A player on third base can attempt to steal home. This sounds insane, since to catch the player, the defensive team only needs to do half or one third of the stuff they normally have to do to catch a stealing attempt. Instead of the pitcher throwing it to the catcher who throws it to a player covering second or third base, the pitcher just needs to get the ball to the catcher who can stand there and tag the runner out. Only the fastest and most audacious players ever dream of attempting this. Jackie Robinson did it successfully in the 1955 World Series. A double steal is a play where two runners on different bases both try to steal the base ahead of them simultaneously. This can involve players on first and second running to second on third but it can also be used to disguise an attempt to steal home. The last form of rare stolen base is not allowed any more. In the early days of baseball, when entertainment and high-spirited hijinks were as important drivers of behavior as winning, base runners would sometimes steal backwards. This behavior is now prohibited by MLB rules and somewhat sassily too: if a player “runs the bases in reverse order for the purpose of confusing the defense or making a travesty of the game. The umpire shall immediately call Time and declare the runner out.”

Thanks for your question,
Ezra Fischer

Are there rules for what color soccer goalies can wear?

Dear Sports Fan,

Are there rules for what color soccer goalies can wear?

Thanks,
Emma

Dear Emma,

FIFA, the international organization that coordinates soccer matches between countries and international tournaments like the World Cup, is rightfully getting a lot of flack these days for being unimaginably corrupt. They deserve every bit of the criticism they get and it’s okay to believe that and also take a second to marvel at the complexity of their task. They need to coordinate soccer games between 209 member associations, each with its own rules, customs, and yes, colors. Team colors and goalie colors are one small example of something which seems like it should be simple and indeed is based on simple principles, but which has a relatively complex set of rules that dictate how it works.

The principle that governs what color soccer goalies can wear is that they should be “clearly distinguishable from the Colours of the Playing Equipment worn by the outfield players of his own team, the outfield players of the opposing team, the goalkeeper of the opposing team and the Match Officials.” Goalies play by different rules than other players. Most obviously, they can use their hands to touch the ball within their own penalty box. It makes sense to want fans, other players, and the referee to be able to easily distinguish them from normal field players. Shirt color is a great way of doing that.

In practice this principle can be harder to meet than it seems. Shirt color is also the primary distinguishing factor in telling one team apart from its opponents and that is the first priority when it comes to choosing colors. In order to avoid a situation where both teams wear the same color, each team has a primary and secondary uniform. For example, Brazil plays primarily in a yellow jersey but also has a blue one for times when they play against teams like Colombia or the Ivory Coast which also use yellow as its primary color.

Brazil: === | ===
Colombia: === | ===
Ivory Coast: === | ===

The matter of which team gets to play with their primary color and which team gives way is dealt with by always designating a “home” team even if a game is played in a neutral location. The home team always gets its choice of uniform. If they want to play with their primary uniform, which they usually will, the other team has to go to its secondary uniform. The reason why all of this is germane to a goalie’s uniform choices is that in order to wear a legal and distinguishing color, a goalie has to avoid the color of their team, the opponent’s team, the opponent’s goalie, and the referees, who also, it must be said, wear shirts. Using our teams above, this means that goalies in a game between Brazil and Colombia in Brazil could wear anything but yellow or red, but if it were in Colombia, they could wear anything but yellow and blue. If the Ivory Coast hosted Brazil, goalies couldn’t wear yellow or blue, but if Brazil was the home team, they wouldn’t be allowed to wear yellow or green. This complexity scales up and up when you consider a World Cup with 24 or 32 teams and the up to seven games against unknown opponents that teams have to be prepared for. And you think it’s difficult to pick out your clothes in the morning!!!

The way that FIFA handles this is by allowing/requiring goalies to have three different colored shirts prepared and registered before a tournament. For the 2015 women’s World Cup in Canada, here is how FIFA describes this requirement. “These three goalkeeper kits must be distinctly different and contrasting from each other as well as different and contrasting from the official and reserve team kits.” Basically, if you’re the goalie on Brazil’s team, you must have three colored jerseys that aren’t blue or yellow. This way, whether Brazil plays against Colombia at home or away, the two goalies combined will be guaranteed to have at least two shirts with color other than yellow, blue, and red. In the 2014 World Cup, referees had a choice of five different colors to help them stay away from any of the colors the teams and goalies might have chosen to wear.

It’s all very complex in theory and I’d love to see a mathematician model out how many different possible combinations there are, what the minimum number of options required is, and maybe even where the ideal contrasting colors fall on a color wheel. In reality, it’s easier than it seems to avoid non-contrasting colors for goalies because most countries stick to relatively mundane colors for their uniforms. There aren’t too many countries that stray from normal blues, reds, yellows, greens, blacks, and whites. A goalie could easily bring a single jersey that contrasts with every team in a World Cup if she’s willing to wear hot pink.

Thanks for your question,
Ezra Fischer

Emma asked me this question while watching a soccer game at the Dear Sports Fan Viewing Parties Meetup group. We’re open for new members! Join here.

How can we penalize NFL teams that hire bad people?

Dear Sports Fan,

I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired about NFL teams hiring domestic abusers and then not being punished for it. The Bears shouldn’t be able to sign Ray McDonald, a known domestic abuser, and then cut him without penalty when he abuses again. What can we do about this?

Thanks,
Casey

Dear Casey,

What a dispiriting news item to break on Memorial Day! Yesterday, news broke that Ray McDonald, a defensive end who had been signed this offseason by the Chicago Bears despite having been arrested more than once for domestic abuse and sexual assault, had been arrested again. This time he was arrested for domestic violence after apparently assaulting a woman who was holding a baby. In a good news/bad news kind of action, the Bears immediately cut him from their team. The good news is that the public’s reaction to Ray Rice has forced teams to shift their stance from supporting arrested players to cutting them. The bad news is that the Bears as an organization get off scot free. They will suffer no penalty worse than having to go out and find another defensive end to sign.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t argue that organizations should be responsible for the actions of all their employees. After all, when an employee of Chipotle, to pick a corporation totally at random, is arrested for domestic abuse, no one calls for Chipotle to be penalized in some way. This feels different for three reasons:

NFL players are not just players. They are also all spokespeople for their teams. They all speak to the media and public. It’s part of their job requirements. If thought of as spokespeople, it becomes more reasonable to hold the team accountable. A spokesperson is supposed to represent the company and the company is responsible for picking people who will represent them well.
The Bears knew what was up with Ray McDonald and they chose to hire him anyway. Their investigation of his character before signing him was so slipshod that it screams of gross incompetence or (more likely) an organization that simply doesn’t care very much about domestic assault. Jane McManus lays this case out spectacularly well in this ESPNW article.
Thanks to last year’s giant domestic abuse story, the NFL is now an institution that people look at to measure the progress of society in addressing domestic abuse issues. It’s important for its own future as a league but also for society as a whole for the NFL to show progress on this issue.

Mike Freeman of Bleacher Report calls for punishing teams by taking draft picks away from teams that sign players with multiple arrests in their past. Taking draft picks away is a sufficiently painful way to punish a team but this potential policy is problematic for a couple of reasons. First, although there is no law against refusing to hire people with multiple arrests, it’s not a path I’d like to see organizations follow. Beyond simply an instinct for innocent until proven guilty (a rationale that need not hold in hiring decisions) it also seems regressive to implement this policy during a period of national recognition of widespread discrimination and racial bias in our police forces. A league that is 68% African-American has no business implementing that type of policy right now. The other problem is that this type of policy will almost inevitably lead to some subjective decisions on the league’s part. What if the multiple arrests are for a minor crime like shoplifting and are a decade old? Does it matter if the player was convicted? Given the NFL’s poor recent history of decision-making, giving them more discretionary power seems like a recipe for disaster.

My favorite story about penalties in sports is the habit of rugby officials to simply yell “play on” when players are fighting. It’s the easiest way of getting them to stop. By continuing the game, it creates a disincentive for the players to continue their fight. No one wants to miss too much of the game. This is exactly how the NFL should handle punishing teams for signing players who are later arrested. Instead of creating a penalty, create a disincentive. The easiest way to do this is to take away a team’s ability to cut players so easily. If teams could not get out of contracts with players so easily, they would be more careful about who they sign. Either force teams to hold players for at least a season after they sign them — using up a prized roster slot — or make it so that the money they were going to pay him can not be used to replace him with another player.

How feasible is this change? The NFL has a soft salary cap, so this would not require too much restructuring. There’s also a clear model for this. The NBA and NHL are much closer to this model today than the NFL is and it hasn’t hurt their popularity one bit. The right of NFL teams to cut players whenever they want with no financial penalty is not inalienable. Nudging this dynamic just a little towards a more lasting commitment on the part of the team will force them to care more about their players in a variety of ways. It could have many other benefits but it will absolutely force teams to think twice about hiring players with McDonald’s past and present behavior.

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

Why are there so many injuries in the NBA these days?

Dear Sports Fan,

Why are there so many injuries in the NBA these days?

Thanks,
Adam

Dear Adam,

It does seem like every time you turn your head, another high profile basketball player goes down with an injury, doesn’t it? Just in this year’s playoffs, we’ve seen significant injuries to Kevin Love, Kyrie Irving, Kyle Korver, Chris Paul, Demarre Carroll, Dwight Howard, Paul Milsap, John Wall, and Mike Conley Jr. Just yesterday, the New York Times ran an article by Scott Cacciola entitled, As N.B.A. Playoff Injuries Pile Up, Team’s Are in Survival Mode. Before I launch into an answer, I’d like to stipulate that I don’t really know why there are more injuries. I’m not sure anyone does — at least, I can’t find anything definitive out there. There seems to be a consensus growing that the NBA would be a safer place for its players if it would shorten its regular season from 82 games to a number in the 60s or 70s. Implicit in that suggestion is the idea that what’s causing increased injury rates is the total number of minutes that players play each year. This belief is shared by coaches like San Antonio Spurs coach, Gregg Popovich, who carefully limit their best players’ playing time, even if it means holding them out of entire games.

Within every sport is long-running war between offense and defense. The battles in this metaphorical war are played out on fields and courts and rinks but they are fought not just by players but through rules, tactics, and strategies. In basketball, the war has long been slanted towards the offense but defense has slowly been pulling itself back into contention over the past twenty five years. As Bill Simmons points out in a column of his which addresses this question, the average number of points per game has fallen from 108 in 1998 to 98 in 2013. This rise in the effectiveness of defense has happened despite rule changes throughout the 1990s and 2000s that were intended to “open up the game”. How has it happened? The short answer is that a combination of technology and new analytic approaches to thinking about basketball have led coaches to invent more effective defensive tactics and demand consistent execution and effort from their players. As scoring has gotten harder, offenses have had to respond by becoming faster and more innovative on offense; using picks and other tactics to generate open shots. If you were to visualize the change the arms race between offense and defense has wrought on basketball from a bird’s eye view, you’d see that it’s made basketball faster and more chaotic with players banging into each other at higher rates and velocities. Basketball seems to have become a more dangerous sport.

If this is true, than limiting the number of minutes a basketball player plays in a given game or the number of games they play per year is very much the wrong thing to do. It may be effective in the short term — and San Antonio’s success with their minute-limiting strategy suggests that it is and has inspired many copycat teams — but it’s bad for the sport. Limiting players will only result in fewer injuries if they continue to play the way they have before, just for fewer minutes. This is not a given in the world of competitive sports, where winning is everything. For historic perspective, look at what happened to ice hockey in the 1920s and 30s as it transitioned from a game where the best players played all or a majority of the game to one where it was normal to play only a third of the game. Hockey players simply used their extra energy to go faster and harder. Nowadays hockey players rocket off their benches, play 45 seconds to a minute at a time, and hockey has become one of the most dangerous sports out there. In my series of articles on brain injuries and the NFL I argued that this same phenomenon is responsible for the danger in football. Too many substitutions and too little actual game-play has made football into a series of high intensity and high danger bursts of activity. It’s difficult to imagine how to make football safer at this point (I recommend reducing its roster size from 53 to 20) but it’s easy to see how basketball could become more dangerous in the same way. A vicious cycle that could take the sport there has already begun. Defense gets better, so offenses have to try harder and get trickier. This makes the sport more taxing and dangerous for its players. As a result, players play less. This allows them to play even harder, which makes it more dangerous, which players play less, which…

The future is a scary place but it doesn’t need to be that way. If NBA owners, coaches, players, and fans resist the urge to change too much, too fast, an equilibrium will probably naturally occur.

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

How do basketball games start? What's a jump ball?

Dear Sports Fan,

How do basketball games start? I know there’s a jump ball to begin but I don’t really understand how it works and what it decides.

Thanks,
Drew

Dear Drew,

Every college and NBA basketball game begins with a jump ball. During a jump ball, two players stand on either side of a referee who then throws the ball up between them. Once the ball has reached the highest part of its arc, it is then free to be touched. Both players attempt to tip the ball to one of their teammates who are set up around the jump ball in a circle with alternating players on each team. Once the ball is tipped, it’s a free-for all. Whichever team gets the ball, gets the ball.

Basketball games in the NBA and WNBA start with a jump ball. There isn’t a jump ball at the start of each quarter, instead the initial jump ball is used to determine who gets the ball to start each of the other three quarters. The team that loses the initial jump ball gets the first possession of the second and third quarters. The team that gains possession of the jump ball to start the game also starts with the ball in the fourth quarter. I’ve never seen a study which tried to figure out whether it was actually better to win the jump ball and get the ball in the first and fourth or lose it and get it in the second and third. My guess is that it’s insignificant because of the high number of possessions overall (around 200) in each game.

The jump ball is not a unique feature of sports. It is a little bit like a face off in hockey or lacrosse, although in both those games the ball/puck is either dropped down onto the ground or begins on the ground. In all three sports, the goal is to start play with both sides having an even (or close to even. In hockey the home team gets a small advantage) chance of gaining possession of the ball. In lacrosse there are face offs at the start of the game, at halftime, and after every goal. In hockey, face offs are quite common, and are used whenever play needs to be restarted after a whistle.In basketball, jump balls are much more rare. In many games, the jump balled used to start the game, sometimes called an opening tip, will be the only jump ball during the game. In the NBA and WNBA, jump balls can happen during the game if there is a “tie-up” when two players from opposing teams seem to simultaneously have possession of the ball. When that happens, the referee stops play and those two players compete in a jump ball to see who can get the ball. This is better than allowing the game to dissolve into a wrestling match but it does sometimes result in some pretty funny looking jump balls between players of very different heights.

The jump ball hasn’t always been rare. Before the 1930s, it was used just like a hockey face off is, to restart play after almost every stoppage. Think about how often that must have been in as high scoring a sport as basketball! This was before the shot clock had been implemented, so basketball wasn’t as high scoring as it was today, but there still must have been a lot of jump balls. Winning jump balls would have been an important skill to have because a team that was good at it could have gotten possession of the ball, scored, and then gotten possession right back again. Today, the jump ball is archaic and almost extinct. It’s not used in college basketball or international basketball except to start the game. If there is a tie-up during a game in college or internationally, one team will get the ball and then the next time it happens the other team will. This is called alternating possession. Although equally fair, there’s something more pleasing to me about the jump ball. I hope it doesn’t disappear completely.

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

Aside from footballs, what else can be customized in sports?

Dear Sports Fan,

Okay, so… what with the whole Deflategate thing popping up again, I understand that in football each team is allowed to customize their balls within certain parameters, and the Patriots probably went too far. Honestly though, I was surprised that football teams could customize their balls at all. What else in sports is customizable?

Thanks,
Charlie

Dear Charlie,

I too was surprised when I first learned that NFL teams were allowed to customize the balls that they play offense with in each game. It seems unusual to give a team leeway over such an important piece of equipment. The ball is not customizable in any other sport that I’m aware of. Not in soccer, basketball, lacrosse, field hockey, volleyball, rugby, or even kickball. Perhaps it’s because in football, the ball is only used by one team at a time. Each team gets a turn playing offense with the ball while the other plays defense without it. When there’s a change of possession, there’s a whistle and the balls can be swapped in or out. Baseball is somewhat similar, although the ball is used somewhat equally by the defense (pitcher) and offense (batter.) It’s not surprising then that despite rules against any customization of the ball in baseball, it’s the one sport I know of where players (usually pitchers) are semi-frequently caught for trying to customize the ball to their liking. Pitchers won’t deflate the ball (it’s not inflated, so good luck deflating it) but they do try to scuff it up, spit on it, or rub sticky stuff onto it. That said, what you asked about were the elements of sports equipment that can be customized. Here’s a quick list off the top of my head of important elements of the five major sports that can be customized.

Soccer: Not much. But then again, there’s not much equipment in soccer at all, that’s one of its attractions. A player’s cleats can be custom-made although the materials used as well as the sharpness (they can’t be sharp) and the height (they can’t be stilts) are controlled.

Basketball: Again, not much here. A players shoes can be customized and if he’s famous enough, they will be to great profit for him or her and a shoe company. There was a fad a while back of players wearing full-length tights on their legs but the league put an end to that, not because it necessarily gave anyone an advantage, but because (I think) they thought it made their players look silly.

Football: Beyond the ball, there are a few things football players customize. Their helmets are remarkably unregulated — mostly because regulation by the NFL would theoretically further their liability for brain injuries incurred under their auspices. Face masks may be customized but cannot include tinted visors unless players ask for and are granted a medical waiver. The number of bars and their location is also regulated and some of the more crazy Hannibal Lector looking masks you’ve seen in past years are being outlawed. (Which is good, because their weight is likely contributing to concussions among the players who wear them.)

Baseball: Major League baseball players are allowed to customize their bats and gloves but within pretty tight regulations. Bats have a maximum diameter (2.61 in) and length (42 in) and must be made of a solid piece of wood. Players have been caught corking their bats (hollowing them out and replacing the center of the wood with cork to make them lighter and theoretically better) and punished before. Gloves have a complicated set of rules, but basically they have maximum dimensions (catchers and first basemen have separate limits from all other fielders) and have to have individual fingers, not a webbing.

Hockey: Now we’re talking. Virtually every piece of equipment in hockey, except for the puck and the goals, are customizable within limits. Goalies wear armor from head to toe that is carefully regulated but thoroughly customized. For other players, the most important thing is the stick. Players can and do customize the length of the stick and the curve of the stick’s blade. The maximum stick length, of 63 inches, can be extended by special waiver for players over 6’6″. The longest stick, is 65 inches long, and used by 6’9″ Zdeno Chara. The blades can be curved however a player wants them to be but at no point can the curve be deeper than 3/4 of an inch. This is a rule that’s broken with great regularity and almost never called even though at any point a coach or player can challenge another player’s stick and have the referees check to see if it is legal. If it’s not, a two-minute penalty is assessed and one team gets a power play. The most famous (or infamous) stick challenge came in the finals of the 1993 Stanley Cup. It’s interesting that, as opposed to the current kerflufle in football, no one really blamed the stick violator, Marty McSoreley, or his team, the Los Angeles Kings for cheating in this way. In fact, if either team was seen as guilty, it was the Montreal Canadiens for calling it out.

Generally, it seems as if the more equipment a sport has and the more its use is isolated to one player or one team, the more customization is permitted. Anything that can be customized is regulated but breaking these regulations is often seen as a normal part of the sport — perhaps worthy of punishment but not of scorn.

Thanks for asking about customization,
Ezra Fischer

What is a good foul?

Dear Sports Fan,

Here’s something I’ve been wondering about. Sometimes while watching a game on TV, usually basketball or hockey, I hear the announcer say something like “that was a good foul.” What does that mean? Is it a moral judgement? A stylistic one? What is a good foul?

Just wondering,
Ronnie

Dear Ronnie,

I love the idea of a foul being morally good. And while I’d love to invent scenarios where that is the case, the most common usage of the phrase “good foul” refers to a foul being good in a tactical sense. Tactically speaking, a foul is considered good if it benefits the team committing it by either increasing the likelihood of their scoring or more likely decreases the likelihood of the other team scoring.

Here are some examples of common good fouls from different sports:

In basketball, any foul that prevents a player who is close to the basket from making a dunk or a layup is thought to be a good foul because the team that has committed the foul trades a close to 100% chance of giving up two points for giving up two free throws. With the league average free throw percentage right around 75%, this clearly a good trade. One danger of trying to commit this type of good foul is that if the foul doesn’t actually keep the player from making that easy dunk or layup, they could be given the two points plus a single extra free throw. This is called an “and one” and a foul that results in this is always a bad foul.
In soccer, there are two similar but slightly different types of good fouls. There is a subtle, non-dramatic foul that stops a team which looks like it is about to generate a scoring chance in its tracks. There is also an obvious foul once a team has a clear and extremely threatening scoring chance. The first type is generally not penalized with a card, or if it is, it’s a yellow card, but the latter almost always is. Even if the player committing the second type of good foul gets a red card, and their team is forced to play a player down for the rest of the game, the foul is still generally thought of as good if it prevented a goal. That’s how important goals are in the low-scoring sport of soccer. These intentional good fouls are sometimes called “professional fouls” in soccer.
Good fouls in hockey are similar to soccer, with one additional category. In hockey, a violent foul that doesn’t affect a scoring chance may sometimes be called a good foul for reasons of morale. Hockey teams are often thought to run on emotion, maybe even a little bit more than other sports, and a player can stir up their team by roughing it up or even fighting with a player from another team. This type of emotional effort is retroactively judged to be good if it works, but if the player’s team doesn’t react or if the opposition scores on the resulting power play, it may be thought of as a bad foul.

The concept of a good foul in sports is an interesting one because it reveals that the rules in sports are not actually rules. They’re more like guidelines. The existence of set penalties in every sport — free kicks and yellow or red cards in soccer, foul shots in basketball, power plays in hockey — proves that these rules are expected to be broken. Rules in sports generally aren’t drawn on moral or ethical lines. No one gets mad at a player who takes a good foul in basketball and gives the other team two free throws. When you see athletes get mad, it’s usually because they feel that some unwritten rule has been broken — that a player has taken a good foul but done it in an unnecessarily violent way. As a character from one of my favorite P.G. Wodehouse books, Monty Bodkin in Heavy Weather says frequently, “There are wheels within wheels.”

Thanks for your question,
Ezra Fischer