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This weekend's sporting oddities
D | Monday, September 25, 2006
The Bucks and the Bengals were both triumphant this weekend. Well done. Although, in my humble opinion, both teams have room for improvement. I would love to see more convincing victories next weekend over formidable opponents thus establishing both teams as the teams to beat in their respective leagues (OSU (4-0) at Iowa (4-0), NE (2-1) at Cin (3-0)).
Those games were good games, but the favorite part of my sporting weekend had to be watching SportsCenter and catching the re-cap of two truly odd sports moments.
#1. Tiger Woods Loses 9 Iron in Lake (NYT)- Not a joke. Hearing this story on SC, I was assuming his poor record at the Ryder Cup had continued and he had thrown the thing in the lake (I, by the way, have been tempted to do this nearly every time I play golf and Pat actually does throw/break his clubs on a regular basis). Unfortunately, no, this wasn't the case. On the 7th green, Woods caddy tripped, fell, and lost his grip on the 9 iron which slipped into the nearby lake. Talk about bad luck. A diver was called to retrieve the club and Woods got it back by hole 15. I guess my question is why not just reach in there and grab it? If it were my club, you'd better believe I'd go in after it. And already carry two 9 irons (Pat lost my original 9 iron while illegally using my clubs and replaced it with two different 9 irons from GoodWill).
#2. St. Louis at Arizona (ESPN, general, St. Louis Today, free kick rule) - This was simply weird. Let me set this up for you. The game is almost over and St. Louis is winning by 2, 16-14. St. Louis has the ball and is trying to run down the clock, but they can't quite make it and are forced to punt. They do so and during the kick time expires. Normally, this is game over and everyone thought so because they came running on the field. But there is a penalty - Arizona was off-sides on the kick. NFL rules say the game cannot end on a defensive penalty (Foul on Last Play, #1). No big deal. St. Louis thinks, "Well, the game is over - we'll decline the penalty and go home." Mr. Official comes out and announces St. Louis declines, giving Arizona the ball and possession with 0:00 on the clock. But wait, the receiver called for a fair catch. NFL rules also specify that after a fair catch, the team who received the kick may attempt a "fair catch kick" (ie field goal) even if time has expired (Fair Catch Rule, #6 "If time expires while ball is in play and a fair catch is awarded, receiving team may choose to extend the period with one fair catch kick down. However, placekicker may not use tee."). So with 0:00 on the clock, the Arizona kicker trots onto the field to attempt a 77 yard field goal (from the spot of the fair catch). St. Louis now thinks, "Wait one second, we just got screwed. We declined the penalty and gave them the ball. That's crap - we want to accept the penalty and get the ball back." And so that is exactly what they do. They call over the Official, accept the penalty, march off the 5 yards, get the ball back with 0:00 on the clock, kneel on it, and the game is over - St. Louis 16, Arizona 14. Craziness.
As a good attorney (maybe someday), I have to ask myself about the legal validity of both of these sporting situations. In Woods case, he had to play without the club for 8 holes. Granted if he threw the club into the lake it would be his own damn fault, but it wasn't his doing, it was his caddy's error. How can we penalize a player for the errors of another? Don't like that hypo, how about a tree falls on his bag and smashes all his clubs - another scenario where he loses equipment due to no fault of his own. Would he be able to get replacements then or would he have to finish the round with busted clubs? As far as the football ruling, I wonder about the issue of accepting or declining penalties. Not that this type of indecission is very prevalent in professional football, but shouldn't your first call regarding a penalty be final. And if not, is there any time frame on how long you can wait to retract your original decision? We decline, then notice the other team's kicker running onto the field and decide to accept. Really? Do Officials now have to ask, "You decline. Is that your final answer? Would you like to phone a friend?"
D | 9/25/2006 12:58:00 PM
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Accepted
