Monday, July 26, 2010

The Dumbest Rule in Sports...



In the 2010 Border Battle between Canada and America!, North America saw firsthand how the winning team can lose a game. No, I'm not talking about the scenario where said "underdog" plays valiantly in an oh-so-close losing effort where in spirit they feel like they won. Or a situation where a team loses on a last second, game-deciding blown call where they can walk away from the court or field saying, "We won that game and everybody knows it". Nope, I'm talking about scoring more runs than the other team, and still walking away without the "W".

Old-man softball is the majors of sport for middle-aged men. Golf is a sport men can find their prime at a later age, but it doesn't offer the competitive gusto softball can for these guys. Old-man softball, beer-league softball, whatever you wanna call it, is where it's at. It's a great game. A game I hope to be apart of at some point down the line. Hopefully way, way down the line. After I'm discovered by the Miami Heat, and fulfill my sport prophecy for the "Greatest Show on hardwood" (other than a young Pamela Anderson).

[I'd really help the cap situation Riley. Seriously, Dwyane Wade makes my yearly salary in a minute and 10 seconds. A minute and 10 seconds! I'll take $95 a game. That's a raise for me. Wade makes that in under a minute and a half. We can make this work. I'll stand in the corner. I'll hack-a-Dwight Howard. This can work! But, alas.]

As I was saying, the 2010 Border Battle was such a fun game to watch, until it didn't make sense anymore.

Canada took an 11-0 lead in the first inning, before a leaping catch at the wall ended their rally, or standard men's softball inning. I don't know how long it took Team USA to battle back, but they battled back. In 6 & 1/2 innings of softball, Canada found themselves clinging to a 30-29 lead with runners on first and third, nobody out, for Team USA. In a 30-29 game you're starting to think this is an impossible jam for a pitcher wearing a ridiculous mask tossing up slow-floaters down the heart of the plate to work his way out of. Until the rulebook drops this piece of knowledge on you. "Hey Team USA, you've reached your limit for home-runs this game (10 - which includes the mammoth 400+ foot bomb over the scoreboard Rusty Bumgardner, a.k.a one of the scariest men alive, hit in the 2nd), and from now on, every home-run you hit is an out". I'm sorry, what? A walk-off home-run in a game that's featured 59 back-and-forth runs is an out now? Who made this rule book, the ref from the U.S.A-Slovenia World Cup game? Why does everyone hate America? We get it. Stop screwing us over in sports!

So upon hearing this, the group of meatheads, juicers, Americans conjured up a winning strategy. They were gonna go down swinging for the fences. And no rule was going to stop them. Ya know why? Cause chicks dig the long ball. Don't believe me? Ask Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux. The first dude literally tries to hit a home run. The second guy, Scott Brown, must be the second strongest man alive (behind Bumgardner), because it looks like he made the effort to hit a looper into center, and still drilled it out over the centerfield wall. With two outs and runners still on first and third, Ryan Robinson shows just how difficult it is to try not to hit a home-run in men's softball, as he weakly grounds out to the pitcher.

So there ya have it. Team USA rallies for two game-losing, walk-off three-run homer outs in the bottom of the last inning to fall to Team Canada 30-29 in one of the most mind-boggling losses of all-time.

This is why we don't let a bunch of drunken, middle-aged men make the rules to a sport.

Image taken from Google Images

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