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OVERHAUL PLAN  "HEY, MISTER GOALIE! DON'T TOUCH THAT BALL! YOUR JOB IS ABOUT TO BE ELIMINATED!" |
Innovative Ideas to Help
Out Sports of All Sorts
By STAN ISAACS
of TheColumnists.com
It is time anew for more proposals to enliven the not always scintillating wide world of sport. We have suggestions. Some are so brilliant, it is certain they will never be adopted. Some are so logical, it is puzzling why they have not been adopted.
And note, the populace laughed when Jimmy Van Alen first lobbied for tiebreaks in tennis, an innovation that saved the sport in this television age.
GOLF
Golf needs help. If Tiger Woods is not in contention, a tournament becomes a bore and a turnoff for TV viewers. I would liven things up in this manner: Accepting that par 3 holes are the most interesting to watch or play because you can follow the ball zooming from tee to a target, I would give every hole that appeal.
On every par 4 and par 5 hole, I would put a hole (a cup) out in the fairway just about where drives would land--far out for pros, closer- in for duffers. If the ball dropped into the cup on the fairway, the golfer would get a score of one (a mini ace?). If there is no hole in one on the fairway, play would continue as usual.
I understand that the odds of making this mini ace are astronomical. But the possibility is intriguing enough to stimulate more interest in watching drives out toward that fairway cup.
Most of my pals, whom I bounced this suggestion off, scoffed. But some stout fellows had a few worthy ideas of their own.
Michael Basch of Melrose Park, PA, said, “There should be more innovative sand traps. Chocolate pudding or jello would be better. Viewers surely would enjoy watching golfers trying to hack their way out of a mound of pudding. Players would be forbidden from wiping off residue that lands on their clothes and caps.”
Larry Merchant of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn would 1. Give men the option of hitting from the women’s tees with a one-stroke penalty, 2. Award an automatic eagle for any shot hit out of a bunker into the hole, 3. Have a stroke taken off a score for any putt of at least 40 feet. 4. An automatic birdie if you hit the flag, and 5. If you hit the ball into the water, you have to play the next hole without a caddie.
BASEBALL
Everybody agrees that untried baseball players are getting outrageous
signing bonuses. The latest is the $15.1 million four-year deal
the needy Washington Nationals have had to submit to for No.
1 pick in the draft, hot pitching prospect Stephen Strasburg.
The agent for Strasburg is Scott Boras, who has been instrumental
in holding up big league teams with outlandish sums for untried
prospects.
Note these figures: No pitcher taken first overall in the draft ever had a 20-game season. Only two No. 1 pitchers, Tim Belcher and Andy Benes, won 100 games with a winning record. And Mike Moore, the No. 1 pick with the most career wins, 161, lost more than he won, 176.
My suggestion: Let the kids keep the money. But for any draftee who doesn’t measure up to agreed-upon minimal-success- numbers per bonus, the agent would have to fork over a graduated chunk of his cut from the signing. The more money the kid got, the more moola one like Boras would have to return.
MORE BASEBALL
Give the fans in the stands equal treatment with TV viewers. When a spectacular or controversial play occurs in a big league game, the TV production provides viewers at home with replay after replay as needed. The people in stadiums frequently don’t get even one replay in such situations. Some of it traces to the sensitivity of umpires fearful of fan abuse. That doesn’t apply to sensational catches or whatever.
Let major league baseball order more in-house
replays.
SOCCER
It is said that “soccer is the sport of the future--and always will be.”
Soccer lacks violence and high scoring. We have no answer for violence. But to put a little more pizzazz in the way of more scoring in little league, high school and college games, the suggestion here: eliminate the goalies.
Ridiculous? There is no goalie in polo
(the sport with horses) and its scores are not outlandish.
HORSE RACING
The Triple Crown is the big deal in racing, but the races are run in the wrong sequence. The Kentucky Derby the first week in May is a mile-and-quarter; the Preakness two weeks later is a mile-and-three-sixteenths; and the Belmont Stakes three weeks later is a mile-and-a-half.
Suggestion: The shortest of the three, the Preakness, should be run first, followed by the Derby and then the Belmont.
The Derby people relish being the first of the Triple Crown races. So there is as much chance of the Derby giving up its spot as Golf adopting my hole-in-one-on-the-fairway inspiration.
THEN THERE'S MICHAEL VICK
If a person descended from another planet into Philadelphia recently and read the Philly papers and listened to the worst and the dimmest on the airwaves, that alien would have thought that the most important event on Earth was the signing of Michael Vick by the Philadelphia Eagles football organization.
A poll by The Inquirer showed 51 per cent against the signing of Vick, 49 per cent in favor. I take the position that a man who has served his time for his crime should be given another chance.
If it were a plumber returning to his trade, there would be no uproar. It sticks in people’s craw, though, when Vick is signed to a $1.7 million contract with a chance to make $7 million. But he is broke from lawyer’s fees and penalties; his behavior will be closely monitored by fans and animal rights groups; and he will have to follow up on making donations to animal rights groups.
But I do have a problem here.
When Vick was first targeted and jailed for his heinous acts against dogs, National Football League Properties, the marketing arm of the NFL, put a stop to sales of Vick jerseys. Good.
But as soon as the Eagles signed him, NFL Properties put back on sale the Vick jersey. Price $80. The NFL couldn’t even wait until Vick spent a little more time getting into people’s good graces. It was business as usual.
And I kid you not: also for sale is a $40 coat for dogs.
My suggestion: the NFL should donate all receipts from sales of Vick shirts to animal rights groups.
As Jimmy Durante used to say, “I got a million of ‘em”--well, almost. I’ll pass for now on my campaign to abolish the infield fly rule in baseball. And college basketball coaches don’t seem to act like idiots as much as they used to so there is no longer a need to adopt my suggestion of making those coaches work games from inside wire cages on the sidelines.
©2009 by Stan Isaacs. The Stan Isaacs caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. The illustration is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. This column first posted Aug. 24, 2009.
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