Do modern times require larger fields?

[Football_Bat]

Let's not start screwing with the fabric of the game any more than we have already with steroids and HGH.

Basketball courts have always been 94 feet. Football fields (in America at least) have always been 100 yards. It's been 60 feet 6 inches from the mound to home plate every year in the modern era of baseball, and 90 feet from base to base.

It's this uniformity of the game that gives us a frame of reference between eras. Yeah, there have been changes here and there, like lowering the mound in 1969 or moving the goalposts to the back of the end zone or the trend toward shorter fences in new ballparks.

But when you start talking about altering the field of play to such a large degree as 11-foot rims, you lose a tie to the history of the game, and that is a huge loss. You do that to the NBA, you might as well make it 70 feet from the mound, or make a football field uphill both ways with a valley at the 50.

 

[Batman]

Basketball -- doubtful. No reason to change an entire sport to cater to a hundred NBA giants.

I think this is the best case. It's not just 100 giants, the forwards & guards are bigger too. I'd love to see some experimental exhibition games with 11 foot rims.

Go watch a bad junior high game, you can see a rough approximation of what it would be like.

In 1970, Tennessee played an intersquad game with (IIRC) 3.5-meter rims (11'5") instead of the normal 10'0". The final score (in an era when college teams averaged about 70-75 ppg) was 40-36. The teams shot in the high 20s from the field.

Bring in 11-foot rims with the Bad Boys-style clock-milking sludge-ball which has suffocated the sport over the last 20 years, and you'd have final scores of 21-17.

Excellent point, except the game has gotten away from the defense-first approach and opened back up a bit in the last few years.
If you've ever been to a playground with a bent rim, or tried to shoot on an 8-foot goal, you can get an idea of what kind of adjustment you'd be looking at. Sure, it'd take the big men and high flyers out of dunk mode. But it'd also completely screw up everybody else's shot. They'd adjust, but if you do it all the way down the line from high school to pro (like you'd have to), it'd take at least several years before the game recovers.

 

[heyabbott]

Basketball -- doubtful. No reason to change an entire sport to cater to a hundred NBA giants.

I think this is the best case. It's not just 100 giants, the forwards & guards are bigger too. I'd love to see some experimental exhibition games with 11 foot rims.

Go watch a bad junior high game, you can see a rough approximation of what it would be like.

In 1970, Tennessee played an intersquad game with (IIRC) 3.5-meter rims (11'5") instead of the normal 10'0". The final score (in an era when college teams averaged about 70-75 ppg) was 40-36. The teams shot in the high 20s from the field.

Bring in 11-foot rims with the Bad Boys-style clock-milking sludge-ball which has suffocated the sport over the last 20 years, and you'd have final scores of 21-17.

Excellent point, except the game has gotten away from the defense-first approach and opened back up a bit in the last few years.
If you've ever been to a playground with a bent rim, or tried to shoot on an 8-foot goal, you can get an idea of what kind of adjustment you'd be looking at. Sure, it'd take the big men and high flyers out of dunk mode. But it'd also completely screw up everybody else's shot. They'd adjust, but if you do it all the way down the line from high school to pro (like you'd have to), it'd take at least several years before the game recovers.

I'd love to see the NBA court widened a little, these guys are so big and quick that they look crowded. More spcing would provide for more passing and better driving into the lane rather than the collapsing man-to-man you see.

RAISE THE RIM in the NBA.

 

[93Devil]

NBA - play a few games four-on-four and see what happens

You can keep the dimensions the same, just create less traffic.

Also, move the three point line way back or get rid of it altogether. When the layup is the easiest lay to score points, you will see the fastbreak come back.



MLB - The only thing I would look at is changing the amount of foul territory. Small change though. Once the drugs have been eliminated, then the numbers will regulate themselves again. I know that is wishful thinking. It's about as wishful as a tightly wound ball spiking the HR numbers.

 

[heyabbott]

For MLB, shorten the season a bit. Going back to 154 game schedule would mean and extra day off every 2 weeks. Given the fragility of starting pitchers or the love of the pitch count in reducing the amount of work they actually do, it would allow the better pitchers to actually produce more by reducing the number of starts the weakest pitchers get.

 

[dooley_womack1]

Changing the playing field is something that should not be done. Can you imagine how much different baseball would be with first base 95 feet away (batting champion hits .280 most years)? Or 85 feet away (batting champion hits .380 most years)? I agree with Football Bat about historical continuity.

 

[alleyallen]

For MLB, shorten the season a bit. Going back to 154 game schedule would mean and extra day off every 2 weeks. Given the fragility of starting pitchers or the love of the pitch count in reducing the amount of work they actually do, it would allow the better pitchers to actually produce more by reducing the number of starts the weakest pitchers get.

Would that also allow for a four-man rotation? Just wondering.

 

[dooley_womack1]

Well, do you like the sound of "Spahn, Sain and three days of rain"?

 

[JR]

This place is starting to sound like a NHL General Manager's meeting where they feel compelled to change at least one rule a year. Now Burke wants one minute minor penalties in OT.

43 Man Squamish!

http://www.collectmad.com/madcoversite/index-quiz_olympics.html

 

[hockeybeat]

Changing the playing field is something that should not be done. Can you imagine how much different baseball would be with first base 95 feet away (batting champion hits .280 most years)? Or 85 feet away (batting champion hits .380 most years)? I agree with Football Bat about historical continuity.

Dooles, hasn't baseball changed the height of the pitching mounds? Obviously that's had an effect on pitchers' ERAs.

 

[hockeybeat]

This place is starting to sound like a NHL General Manager's meeting where they feel compelled to change at least one rule a year. Now Burke wants one minute minor penalties in OT.

43 Man Squamish!

http://www.collectmad.com/madcoversite/index-quiz_olympics.html

Burke was wrong about the 3-2-1-0 points system last year and he's wrong this year.

 

[Captain_Kirk]

The rim is fine at 10 feet. No way is anything going to be done to take the dunk out of the game--fans (and their wallets) like the dunk.

Widen the NBA basketball court, at the NBA level at least. The length of the court is fine, but they need to widen it to allow more space. It's not only the size of the players, but perhaps more importantly, the speed that makes it easy to cover the existing space. Widen it and I think you allow for much more creativity in the offensive end.

Hockey rinks need to be wider as well, although as markvid notes, getting the owners to agree to coughing up that revenue isn't going to happen. At the very least, any new stadiums ought to be built to bigger ice surface specifications.

At some point in the future, this will need to happen or they will have to go to 4 on 4.

 

[dooley_womack1]

Changing the playing field is something that should not be done. Can you imagine how much different baseball would be with first base 95 feet away (batting champion hits .280 most years)? Or 85 feet away (batting champion hits .380 most years)? I agree with Football Bat about historical continuity.

Dooles, hasn't baseball changed the height of the pitching mounds? Obviously that's had an effect on pitchers' ERAs.

That was like, 1969. Different factors since then have caused ERAs to fluctuate.

 

[JR]

Going to an international ice surface for NHL hockey is a bad idea.

People complain about the lack of hitting now. It would disappear on a larger ice surface.

Bigger ice means more places for players to hide.

Think of a Swedish Elite regular season game where the shots are 18-14 and as our very own FoF said, the players are not trained to trap, they're genetically encoded.

 

[Hammer Pants]

I think basketball courts should stay at 94 feet, and basketball goals at 10 feet, and football fields at 100 yards, but I think both sports should consider widening the playing field. I think baseball is fine the way it is. Spacing doesn't seem to be a problem in baseball, but it's making NBA basketball more difficult to watch, in my humble opinion.

 

[Webster]

I can see the argument as to why the NBA court should be a bit wider -- although teams with good spacing seem to have plenty of room. There is no reason at all to change the rim height.

 

[cranberry]

I think the rim should be raised in the NBA. Dunking has become too much of the game now and has lost the "wow" effect.

The gimmicky slam-dunk contest was a case in point. Cup cakes with candles? Toy goals with suction-cup backboards? It was stupid despite the TBS shills' pronouncements that Dwight Howard had brought the contest back to popularity.

 

[dooley_womack1]

He Supermanned dat dunk.

The only magic dunk contest moment for me was when Darnell Hillman came out of nowhere (may not even have been affilliated with a team at the time) and won. Still, raising the rim would be like shortening or lengthening the base paths. It would create a historical schism.

 

[CollegeJournalist]

College basketball needs one major rule change: move the 3-point line back a couple feet.

And if college officials called the game the way it's supposed to be played, it'd be a better game overall too. Of course, it'd result in 40 turnovers a game and frustrate the hell out of everyone involved, but at least it'd actually resemble basketball.

 

[Alma]

The 3-point shot is ridiculous in college basketball. Teachers "teach to the test" in public schools and coaches "coach to the arc" in college basketball. It's destroyed the creativity and structure of the game. These days, guards just run ball screens behind the arc until they get a sliver of an opening, and jack it up.

It gave me a great deal of pleasure, last year, to watch Georgetown beat North Carolina with lovely design - easy layups and short jumpers - while the Tar Heels finally went cold and missed their last ten shots or so from behind the three point line.

Then, in the Final Four, we got treated to a feast of long bombs and putbacks. Boring.