The Living Room
Let’s look at living rooms. Let’s say you want to change your living room. You want to give it a fresh look. So, you start with the furniture, then the walls and the flooring. Don’t forget the home decor: the blinds, lighting, wall art, etc. Now, when you’re done, is it still your living room? You know what I mean. How much can you change something and still have the essence of the original? Maybe you didn’t like the original. Maybe you are just experimenting.
Baseball: Now on to the ‘living room’ of sports. You know of the recent baseball changes. Time clocks, no shifts, etc. If Abner Doubleday (mistakenly given full credit for ‘inventing’ baseball) came back, would he still recognize the game? We still use a diamond, but we have changed the mound several times. We now use big leather gloves and the hitters wear ‘body armor’. We now value the HR a lot more than in the old days. After all at All-Star games, we have HR Derbies, not Bunting Battles. And, of course, Doubleday would be shocked at the stadiums and the huge amount of money the players make, etc. So, pretend it is 2060, what if we changed the game even more? How about 7 innings instead of 9, fewer games, and using metal bats? How about fully legalized gambling (sorry Pete), allowing some PEDs, making HRs worth two runs instead of one? How about points being used instead of runs? A team gets three points for out-scoring their opponent at the end of the game, but they also collect points for winning individual innings. The standings would be based on points. Would Abner be able to recognize this ‘living room’? Would we?
Basketball: You may know that James Naismith invented the game in 1891 (full credit). He wrote down 13 rules. One of them was “No Dribbling” (my words). That’s right the original ‘living room’ of basketball had no dribbling, no dunks, no 3-pointers, no carrying the ball, no three-step layups, and no seven-footers. The original game used a peach basket and a soccer ball. They also used a ladder to retrieve the occasional score. Dribbling was legalized in 1897. Would Naismith recognize the ‘modern’ game? I am not sure. I know I will never agree with the flagrant carrying of the ball. Naismith invented the game to give his athletes a way to stay in shape during the winter months. (It still does that.) Now that basketball is a global entertainment enterprise will we one day see 11-foot baskets and 4-point lines? Do we want to? Would Naismith?
Football: The original ‘living room’ of football still has most of the same furniture. They play on a grid (gridiron). They use 11 players and a funny shaped ball. The winners are determined by forcing the ball over their opponent’s goal line. All true. The furniture may be very similar, but a lot has changed. The biggest change, of course, was the invention and legalization of the forward pass. Can you imagine football without the forward pass? They are now dealing with the forward handoff. There have been many equipment changes and safety rules installed. Another change that gets lost is the bigger-stronger-faster evolution. Linemen used to be 180 lbs. but now 280 lbs. is average. QBs’ average playing years have increased drastically. We are no longer amazed when a 35-year-old QB runs onto the field. There will be other football ‘living room’ changes, but I do not think the game will be unrecognizable. We will lose kick-offs soon, there will be computer chips in everything, maybe a different color ball, full advertising on uniforms, etc. But still, I think the ‘living room’ is safe.
Personally, I like my living room just fine. I hope Irene doesn’t change it a lot.
Until next time.
