Letters to the Editor
jajasoon
Published Letters: 14 Editor's Choice: 6
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A-Rod should not be traded....
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... because it's in the best interest of baseball to have the most-hated (or 2nd-most to Barry) player on the Yankees.
We should continue to hate A-Rod for his contract (which was not just "offered to him" like one letter suggested, but actively bargained in order to make it exactly double the previous "largest sports contract ever"). We should hate him for breaking Texas's bank, and then complaining that the team couldn't win. We should hate him for acting like he's entitled to people's cheers & teammates' support without earning it. He's fun to hate, and it's fun to watch him struggle... especially on the Yankees! No trading him to a team that you might want to win something, as it's a guarantee of failure.
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The Scrump Ball
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I agree that kicking should be reduced, but not totally eliminated (else the "football" name becomes even harder to explain to your kids & people outside the US). I also agree that overtime needs to be decided on something more than a coinflip (although, the flip is less determinate than you'd think). So here's a modest proposal:
No kickers - FGs and PATs are gone. Instead of kickoffs, the opening moment of each half and overtime is a variant of the "jump ball" in basketball and a rugby "scrum" - lets call it a "scrump ball." Refs put the ball at midfield - each team lines up at their own 30 yard lines. At the whistle, each team tries to gain posession of the ball sprinting toward midfield. However, the first touch of the ball must be with a player's foot - once it is initially kicked, it's a live ball that everyone wrestles for. The team that ends up with posession gets the ball on their 20 yd line (like a touchback).
After one team scores, intead of a kick-off, there's a scrump ball with the ball placed at the 20 yd line of the scored-upon team - they line up in their end zone, with the scoring team at the 50 yd line. Thus the scored-upon team has an advantage & can easily just tap the ball with their foot & fall on it, or risk losing it by trying to move it foward for better field possession. Whoever ends the play with possession gets the ball at that field spot.
Might the scrump ball fit into King's master plan? Long live the King!
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More meta-Wikipedia stuff
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So to continue the meta-navel gazing: I was the one who uploaded your image, which I downloaded from the Salon site. Within a day, a dedicated Wikipedian tagged it for deletion, as I do not have the rights to the image. (I said it was a screenshot & thus should be considered "fair use," although technically it wasn't a screenshot...). According to Wikipedia policies, you need rights to an image posted, or it must clearly be fair use. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Images_and_media_for_deletion#Image:KingKaufman.gif provides the logic, which asks King to upload an image of himself and assert that he has the rights. Clearly self-promotion is discouraged for text, but encouraged for images on Wikipedia...
O King, what shall we do?
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Decline the penalty?
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In football, a team can decline an opposition penalty that they see as more of a curse than a blessing. But in basketball, a team fouled not in the act of shooting is forced to take free throws and turnover the ball as a "penalty" to the defending team. Why not just let a team with the ball decline the shooting penalty and take the ball out of bounds with a fresh shot clock? The idea that a team intentionally violates the rules of play in order to force the other team to give up the ball is ridiculous & unprecedented in other sports - let the "victim" have a say in their reward!
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Colts record
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Clearly the last game of the season meant little to the Colts, but they still lost, leaving them with a record of 13-3...
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Basketball rule changes
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't like the idea of having different rules for the final 2 minutes - it seems arbitrary & forced. And free throws do serve a purpose overall.
A more elegant solution: allow teams to "decline the penalty." In football, a team can decline a penalty if they believe the result of the play is better than the penalty. In basketball, allow the recipients of a foul (at any point in the game) that results in free throws because the fouling team is over-the-limit to decline the free throws and elect to inbound the ball - if it's a shooting foul, the free throws will happen as normal. But this would discourage the pointless fouls that slow down the game, and inbounding the ball can be quite exciting in a tight basketball game.