Rethinking the Fundamentals

Have you ever tried to watch a game (any sport) with a complete neophyte who wants you explain the game to them? Usually, it will be a little kid, or perhaps a new girlfriend who hates sports, but you two are in the infatuated, I-want-to-share-everything-with-you phase of the relationship.

Too often, the neophytes have the nerve to ask difficult questions without clear cut answers, involving the sports culture ("Why do baseball players fidget and adjust their cups so much, but football and basketball players don't?") that earn the reply, "That's just the way they do it." "It's tradition. "Just ... 'cause."

I am all for maintaining the culture of any given sport, but sometimes the neophyte will ask a level-two question about strategy. And this is where I have a hard time defending the game. Each of the three U.S major sports has its share of conventional strategy that needs to start being questioned.

It's the bottom of the fifth of a tie game. Runner on second and third, no outs. The batter hits a high fly ball deep to right field, but although it's clearly going to stay in the field of play, it's also clearly going to land foul (so you see this scenario most often in ballparks with a lot of foul area). The right-fielder camps under the ball, catches it, and throws it back to the infield. The runner on third is able to tag and score easily.

We've seen it happen tons of times. What's askew in the above scenario? I'll let you try to figure it out. I'll wait.

Time's up. Unless, perhaps, the outcome of the game is no longer in doubt, I think the fielding team can be said to have blundered whenever there's a successful sacrifice fly caught in foul territory. Why don't the outfielders JUST LET THE BALL GO? It makes no sense in any situation except a blowout for the fielding team to take the "trading a run for an out" route as opposed to the "take a strike for free" route. I don't care if you are facing the laboratory born-and bred science child of Barry Bonds, Babe Ruth, and Albert Pujols, you still have a better-than-even chance of retiring the batter anyway regardless of the situation, and the odds of retiring him improve with each strike. Take the strike!

Maybe I'm missing something. I admit to watching less baseball, much less baseball, than football and basketball. But I must stick to my grounds, because there have been two situations, both when I was a kid, where I actually saw the outfielder let the ball go in that situation as I've been clamoring for. In both cases, the commentators praised the quick, smart thinking of the outfielder (one of them I remember was, believe it or not, Jose Canseco). This should not be a novel idea.

On to basketball. Man, do I see a lot of clock mismanagement in basketball. I take that back. I see a lot of possession mismanagement in basketball when a team is down by three or more with time running out. I can only imagine what the coach says during those timeouts:

"Okay, boys, we are down by six with 18 seconds left. We need points in a big way. Three points would be nice, but if they give you the paint for free, take it. Instead of trying to get points in as large bunches as possible, we will play tit-for-tat and just hope they miss free throws. Granted, this ultimately works so infrequently that it's precisely why the other team is giving us the paint, but I guess this is one of those rare times in sports where both teams want the same thing."

If you need three points very late, TAKE A THREE! If you need four or more points very late, TAKE A THREE! You can't count on the other team to miss free throws. You can't count on your team being able to foul as quickly as you need. The only thing that's in your hands is the rock and the shooting stroke of your guards. Take control of your own destiny and TAKE A THREE!

That's an example of basketball coaches not being greedy enough. Football coaches, on the other hand, get too greedy when they are down by multiple possessions late in the game.

Your team is down by nine with 45 seconds left. You have the ball at your opponents 30, 1st-and-10, but you just spent your last timeout. Things are looking bleak.

Can I make a suggestion to you? It's radical, I don't think I've seen everyone do this, but I'm gonna suggest it anyway: Attempt the field goal now.

You need a TD and a field goal anyway, it doesn't matter which order you get them in. What you need to conserve most of all is time. If you kick the field goal now and make it, and the gods smile on you and recover the onside kick, you will have almost 40 seconds to travel about 60 yards to get the winning touchdown. That's five or six plays. You might not even need to try a hail mary.

But no, instead what coaches typically do is try to move the ball and will only attempt the field goal on fourth down (but when time is so short that an onside kick is inevitable, downs do not matter much) or they have no problem getting first downs, but by the time they score the TD, there's only a few seconds left.

And that's the other reason it's smart to take the field goal attempt as soon as feasible if you are down by 9, 10, or 11 and it's late enough that you will need to recover an onside kick regardless — because there's no such thing as a hail mary field goal.

The longest field goal made in NFL history is 63 yards. To attempt a 63-yarder means the line of scrimmage is your opponent's 46 (adding 10 yards for the end zone and seven yards for the hold). If, instead, you have the ball at your own 46, where you might be a play or two after a successful onside kick, you have no chance of hitting a 71-yard field goal. Most quarterbacks can, however, launch the ball 60 yards into the end zone, and we all know of hail marys that have been answered so ... take the field goal first. Please.