July 19, 2018 • 14 mins
Is aiming for your opponent's caddy a good strategy in golf? Did old-timey baseball umpires really sit in rocking chairs? And why are there 8-pointers in North Korean basketball? Will and Mango explore the hilarious ways games ought to be played.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what, mango, what's that? Well, all right, so we're
both big fans of basketball, and so I gotta kick
out of the story I read the other day. I
don't know if you've seen this. Do you know that
North Korea actually plays basketball completely differently than we do
here in the States. So I knew Kim Jong un
was a fan of basketball, but how's the game different
over there? I guess he personally changed the rules of
the sport because he wanted the game to be more exciting.
(00:21):
And also, I don't know if you've noticed, but he's
a dictator, so you could just change the rules for
whatever he wants. But all right, So here are a
few of the rule changes for North Korean basketball. A
slam dunk is three points. If you switch a traditional
three pointer, it becomes a four pointer. But if you
miss a free throw, you lose a point. Now, this
would be highly problematic for players like Shack. I don't
(00:42):
think he would do so well in the North Korean
Basketball Association. But and then the last one here is
in the final three minutes of a game, every two
pointer becomes an eight pointer. That's so crazy, I feel
like it honestly sounds like my five year old just
changing the rules as you play, just this arbitrary wielding
of power, but an eight pointer Also, like, how good
(01:05):
would the Warriors be in that system with Steph carry
Just draining eight pointers at the end of a game,
kid would be fair at all. But anyway we're reading
those rules made me wonder about strange rules and sports
and what are the rule changes we might not know about.
So that's what today's nine Things is all about. Let's
dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius.
(01:46):
I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my
good friend man Guess show Ticketer and sitting behind the
soundproof glass, trying to devise an improved tick tik toe
game with those plastic amphibious Yeah, and he's calling it. Oh,
I get it. He's calling tic tac toad. I say,
I get it, but I do get to is an amphibian.
(02:06):
But that's our good friend and producer Tristan McNeil. He
is always up to something interesting, all right. So today's
show is all about rules and rule changes in games.
I'm curious, do you have any house rules or improved
rules for any games that you've played over the years. Yeah,
so I was thinking about this a little. I mean,
we had minor variations on games, like we we turned
croquet into extreme croquet, and we'd uh we played in
(02:28):
snow and ice over like five or six backyards as
a kid. Or we used to play basketball in the
strange indoor outdoor gym that was walled in on three
sides and it had no out of bounds so you
could like make these amazing bounced passes to yourself off
the wall and trick shots off these like beames. It was.
It was just super fun. But you know, I can't
say we thought of anything super creative. Um, you know what.
(02:51):
One variation to me that's so much better than the
original game, though, is Team Sorry. Have you ever played this?
I don't think so. Is it like the game Sorry? Yeah,
it's it's exactly like the game Sorry, except you played
on teams and and our friend Jeff Rubin introduced me
to it. He you know, he does that wonderful Jeff
Reuben Jeff Ruben podcast which everyone should listen to. But
what's amazing is that, like you team up with the
person who's sitting across from you, and you play with
(03:12):
both your pieces, and it just makes the game so
much more fun, Like everyone's invested, plus in the rules.
At the end of the game, whoever wins or loses,
you have to end with a four way high five.
So that honestly makes everyone so happy at the end
of the game. It's really great. I have a feeling.
Really that's the main reason that you love the game.
We'll have to try that in the office sometimes because
(03:33):
it does sound fun. All right, So what's your first
factor the day? So how about wartime rules for golf?
I am not a golfer, but I found this on
lists of note and I love that people were so
dedicated to golf that they came up with a list
of wartime rules for it. So like they're actually playing
during a war. Yeah, it's it's amazing. So here are
a few ways to play during the war. Players are
(03:54):
asked to collect bomb and shrapnel splinters to save causing
damage to the moing machines, which I guess sounds fine.
You should pick them up as you play in competitions.
During gunfire or while bombs are falling, players may take
cover without penalty for ceasing play. Oh my gosh, how
kind of them Let them avoid being bombed or shot,
(04:15):
and a player who stroke is affected by the simultaneous
explosion of a bomb may play another ball from the
same place penalty one stroke. I like that they have
rules for this. I know, just the idea that, like,
if a bomb goes off as you play, but you
still want to keep playing, you can take your shot
over again, but you still a stroke. It makes sense
(04:35):
because that just just makes perfect sense. That is banana.
So what's your next fact? All right, Well, I was
gonna do something on kickball, but I think I'm gonna
save that one for a little bit later because I
also found some old golf rules that that you might like.
Sur friend Nick Green did a great story on old
golf rules that no longer exist, and there were a
lot of them on here that I didn't know. Like
(04:55):
instead of a t box, the original rule is that
you would put your ball one stick length from the
whole and then you'd start the next hole. So once
you finished the hole, you just put one stick link
and then you'd start right from there, which I am
guessing you know, would cause some traffic jams on the
golf course of people trying to finish out each hole.
Also when you dropped a ball on the course, you
(05:16):
were supposed to quote stand erect face the whole, and
then drop the ball over your shoulder. Very specific. I
don't really, I guess so I'm not sure why it
had to be behind your back, but maybe that's so
you didn't get some sort of unfair advantage. But I
think my favorite old timey rule that's been changed since
you know this is from the Rules of Golf is
(05:37):
played by the Society of St. Andrew's Golfers from eighteen twelve.
It reads, quote, if the player's ball strikes his adversary
or his caddy, the adversary loses the whole. If it
strikes his own caddy, the player loses the hole, Which
means you could technically aim for the other player and
if you hit him or his caddy, I guess you
win the hole, which does add like maybe a little
(05:59):
bit of excite you've been to the game, but also
kind of sounds awful. But you know that said, the
rule does clarify that it has to be with the ball,
like if you strike an opposing player with your club,
then you lose the I'm glad they everyone. Yeah, I
do feel like if that's how golf was still played.
You get a lot more people watching it on TV,
for sure. I think the ratings will go through the roof. Okay,
(06:21):
so what's your next fact? So this isn't exactly a
rule change, but it is a big change to a
board game I loved as a kid, which is Clue.
So you know, plenty of board games have been altered
over the years. Scrabble allows words like yo and za
which is short for pizza. Um it really it allows
both those words. Now, Yeah, it's crazy. My grandmom would
be incensed. Monopoly got rid of the iron and the thimble.
(06:43):
Thimble was actually my favorite piece, but they've replaced it
for like a cat and a rubber ducky and I
think there's even a penguin in the mix for some reason.
But one of the things I only just learned about
was that Clue killed off Mrs White, who was the
housekeeper slash cook character, and so who they replace her with?
So they're play her with Dr Orchid, who's this PhD
in plant toxicology. And initially, you know, when I read this,
(07:06):
I was just like stomping about and her rumping about,
like why do games have to change? Or whatever, so angry,
But then I read orchids backstory and I kind of
love it. So apparently she's the adopted daughter of the
mentions owner, and she was expelled from a fancy Swiss
boarding school after a quote a near fatal daffodil poisoning
(07:26):
insult here, which is already hilarious. And and then she
was homeschooled by Mrs White, the woman she suspiciously replaces.
She's also Asian, which Slate points out makes her the
only recognizable person of color in the game, but Hasbro's
statement about it is really the best they wrote. Quote,
it was a difficult decision to say goodbye to Mrs White,
but after seventy years of suspicious activity, we decided that
(07:49):
one of the characters had to go. But it does
seem like a reasonable replacement. Well, here's something I've always
wondered as a fan of the show Jeopardy, and that is,
why is it that only the winner gets to keep
the cash? You know, and Wheel of Fortune or other
games shows, if you win some money along the way,
you actually do get to keep. But Jeopardy wasn't always
(08:10):
this way. So in the original version of the show,
this aired way Back in the sixties, the second and
third place would get to keep their winnings. But in
nineteen sixties seven there was a contestant who ruined it
for everyone. So he appeared on Jeopardy with the sole
intent of winning enough money to buy an engagement ring,
which seems honest enough. Midway through the game, when he'd
(08:30):
amassed enough winnings, he just shut his mouth and stopped playing.
Get it So like, he got to a certain amount
of money and knew if that was it, and you know,
he thought if he answered any questions wrong, he might
lose that money. And so this exposed a real flaw
in the system this TV exactly. So when the show
returned for primetime, the show runners wanted to make sure
that didn't happen again. After all, I mean, like, it
(08:52):
could be disastrous if all three players decided halfway through
the game to stop and just say, like, okay, we've
won enough money. So they changed the rules so that
only the winner would take home the cash, and it
turned into a horse race to you know, to Final Jeopardy,
which is a great story. But what about the guy, Like,
do you know anything more about him? I was reading
on a Jeopardy blog, and he actually spent that money
(09:14):
in the right place. According to a book written on
Jeopardy twenty three years later, when the game show checked
in on him, he was actually still married to that woman.
So it is kind of a nice story. I do
like that. Well, here's something I didn't realize. Did you
know that up until seven not all ice hockey players
have to wear helmets when they played? Oh god, it
seems a wholeful, I know, and in the nineties, but
you know, I'm obviously not a huge hockey fan. I'll
(09:37):
get into the Olympics, and you know, I used to
play like floor hockey and jim but it's not a
sport I pretend to watch. But you know, it really
does seem unimaginable to me that all the way up
until ninety seven, you can still play the game without
a helmet. But it's for an interesting reason. So apparently,
the NHL has mandated headgear since nineteen seventy nine season
(09:58):
in particular, but according to The New York Times, players
were then allowed to decide for themselves whether they wanted
to wear a helmet, although if they didn't, they were
required to sign a waiver. So this one player, Craig McTavish.
He was grandfathered in during his rookie season and he
played helmetless for sixteen years until the seven season. And
at the time he said he was really lucky too
(10:20):
and grateful to have left the game without any serious
head injuries. So, you know, reporters asked him, why didn't
you just wear the thing? And he just shrugged and
said it was a comfort thing. Wow, I kind of
want to see a brain study on this guy. That
that's pretty well all. Well, here's a quick one for
you that you you might have heard before, But there's
this old fact that baseball umpires used to call games
from padded rocking chairs, which you know kind of sounds
(10:42):
a little bit lazy. Yeah, I mean that fact always
reminded me of that Seinfeld where George gets a security
guard a chair because he wants them to be able
to take a load off. But then the debate what
type of chairs is comfortable but not too comfortable? You know,
and of course in that case it's disastrous. But back
to baseball, So the rocking chair bits seems it suspect
and maybe that happened once or twice, but I couldn't
(11:03):
really find any credible evidence of it. But what is
true is that umpiring was a totally different thing in
the early days of baseball. At the time, baseball was
this gentleman's pastime, and umpires were always volunteers. In fact,
it was considered an honor to be asked to umpire game,
because it meant you were a person of some standing,
and you know that you were known for your fairness,
(11:25):
and their clothing kind of showed this. So I found
this in the Society for American Baseball Research, but in
early woodcuts of baseball games quote, the idealized stereotype of
an umpire was a distinguished looking fellow, often attired in
a top hat Prince Albert coat and Caine, who stood
neeled or sat on a stool a respectable distance from
home plate along the first baseline. I kind of wish
(11:47):
this was still the case, the top of everything, exactly.
And of course this the game became more competitive, and
umpiring felt less like an honor and more like a hassle.
These umpires got paid, and they put on these new
uniform arms and move them closer into the plate to
make better calls and and all of that. But it's
it's interesting to read that history. Well, I I do
know we've got two more facts to go, So why
(12:09):
don't we go to a little break first and then
get back to this. Welcome back to parts and genius.
We we're talking rules and changes in sports, all right, Mango,
(12:30):
we got one last fact each. What's your last one
going to be? So one of the things I'm always
fascinated by is how sports often changed their rules based
on like one player's dominance. And uh, you think about
how like there was no dunking college basketball for number
of years because of lou L Cinder, who you know
changed his name to Koreem abdul Jabbar and was just
unstoppable in college. And then the same was true for
(12:52):
Wilt Chamberlain, who I guess used to lob up his
free throws and then jump in the lane and dunk them,
which is why players can't cross the plane of the
free throw line, you know while shooting. Oh I didn't
know that. Yeah, And and there are lots of stories
like that. But do you know that when Darren Sprowles
was a tiny kid and played football, his league instituted
a rule that he wasn't allowed to run any sweeps
because he scored every single time he was handed the ball,
(13:13):
and random you were just so dominant in this like
peewee league that they banned him from running it and
they changed the rules just for him. And he was
super fast. I could see that happening. I've not heard that,
and and terrifying he was that good at such a
young age. So how are you going to close this
one out? All? Right? I think I want to go
with a fact about kickball, as I mentioned earlier, So
(13:34):
did you know that in the original rules for kickball,
and this from the nineteen twenties, was that there was
actually no picture. So apparently teams were supposed to have
fifteen people on each side and you just placed the
ball on home plate and then you just ran up
and kicked it. Also, kids had to stand twenty feet
away from you, and if the ball didn't go that far,
it was an automatic out, which I guess sounds fine.
(13:57):
But the strangest thing about the original rules is that
there were only two bases and you didn't have to
advance the basis when someone kicked the ball, So I
guess technically fourteen kids could be standing on that base
when the last kicker was at and then they would
all run home at one time, which just sounds bananas.
I know, it sounds like chaos. I am glad they
(14:19):
changed the rules, but I also kind of want to
see like an old timey kickball league like show up
on you know, on playgrounds somewhere or in ESPN three
some weekend. So I do think you win the fact
off with that fact. All right, Well, thanks so much
and thank you guys for listening. We'll be back with
a full length episode tomorrow
Guess what, mango, what's that? Well, all right, so we're
both big fans of basketball, and so I gotta kick
out of the story I read the other day. I
don't know if you've seen this. Do you know that
North Korea actually plays basketball completely differently than we do
here in the States. So I knew Kim Jong un
was a fan of basketball, but how's the game different
over there? I guess he personally changed the rules of
the sport because he wanted the game to be more exciting.
(00:21):
And also, I don't know if you've noticed, but he's
a dictator, so you could just change the rules for
whatever he wants. But all right, So here are a
few of the rule changes for North Korean basketball. A
slam dunk is three points. If you switch a traditional
three pointer, it becomes a four pointer. But if you
miss a free throw, you lose a point. Now, this
would be highly problematic for players like Shack. I don't
(00:42):
think he would do so well in the North Korean
Basketball Association. But and then the last one here is
in the final three minutes of a game, every two
pointer becomes an eight pointer. That's so crazy, I feel
like it honestly sounds like my five year old just
changing the rules as you play, just this arbitrary wielding
of power, but an eight pointer Also, like, how good
(01:05):
would the Warriors be in that system with Steph carry
Just draining eight pointers at the end of a game,
kid would be fair at all. But anyway we're reading
those rules made me wonder about strange rules and sports
and what are the rule changes we might not know about.
So that's what today's nine Things is all about. Let's
dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius.
(01:46):
I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my
good friend man Guess show Ticketer and sitting behind the
soundproof glass, trying to devise an improved tick tik toe
game with those plastic amphibious Yeah, and he's calling it. Oh,
I get it. He's calling tic tac toad. I say,
I get it, but I do get to is an amphibian.
(02:06):
But that's our good friend and producer Tristan McNeil. He
is always up to something interesting, all right. So today's
show is all about rules and rule changes in games.
I'm curious, do you have any house rules or improved
rules for any games that you've played over the years. Yeah,
so I was thinking about this a little. I mean,
we had minor variations on games, like we we turned
croquet into extreme croquet, and we'd uh we played in
(02:28):
snow and ice over like five or six backyards as
a kid. Or we used to play basketball in the
strange indoor outdoor gym that was walled in on three
sides and it had no out of bounds so you
could like make these amazing bounced passes to yourself off
the wall and trick shots off these like beames. It was.
It was just super fun. But you know, I can't
say we thought of anything super creative. Um, you know what.
(02:51):
One variation to me that's so much better than the
original game, though, is Team Sorry. Have you ever played this?
I don't think so. Is it like the game Sorry? Yeah,
it's it's exactly like the game Sorry, except you played
on teams and and our friend Jeff Rubin introduced me
to it. He you know, he does that wonderful Jeff
Reuben Jeff Ruben podcast which everyone should listen to. But
what's amazing is that, like you team up with the
person who's sitting across from you, and you play with
(03:12):
both your pieces, and it just makes the game so
much more fun, Like everyone's invested, plus in the rules.
At the end of the game, whoever wins or loses,
you have to end with a four way high five.
So that honestly makes everyone so happy at the end
of the game. It's really great. I have a feeling.
Really that's the main reason that you love the game.
We'll have to try that in the office sometimes because
(03:33):
it does sound fun. All right, So what's your first
factor the day? So how about wartime rules for golf?
I am not a golfer, but I found this on
lists of note and I love that people were so
dedicated to golf that they came up with a list
of wartime rules for it. So like they're actually playing
during a war. Yeah, it's it's amazing. So here are
a few ways to play during the war. Players are
(03:54):
asked to collect bomb and shrapnel splinters to save causing
damage to the moing machines, which I guess sounds fine.
You should pick them up as you play in competitions.
During gunfire or while bombs are falling, players may take
cover without penalty for ceasing play. Oh my gosh, how
kind of them Let them avoid being bombed or shot,
(04:15):
and a player who stroke is affected by the simultaneous
explosion of a bomb may play another ball from the
same place penalty one stroke. I like that they have
rules for this. I know, just the idea that, like,
if a bomb goes off as you play, but you
still want to keep playing, you can take your shot
over again, but you still a stroke. It makes sense
(04:35):
because that just just makes perfect sense. That is banana.
So what's your next fact? All right, Well, I was
gonna do something on kickball, but I think I'm gonna
save that one for a little bit later because I
also found some old golf rules that that you might like.
Sur friend Nick Green did a great story on old
golf rules that no longer exist, and there were a
lot of them on here that I didn't know. Like
(04:55):
instead of a t box, the original rule is that
you would put your ball one stick length from the
whole and then you'd start the next hole. So once
you finished the hole, you just put one stick link
and then you'd start right from there, which I am
guessing you know, would cause some traffic jams on the
golf course of people trying to finish out each hole.
Also when you dropped a ball on the course, you
(05:16):
were supposed to quote stand erect face the whole, and
then drop the ball over your shoulder. Very specific. I
don't really, I guess so I'm not sure why it
had to be behind your back, but maybe that's so
you didn't get some sort of unfair advantage. But I
think my favorite old timey rule that's been changed since
you know this is from the Rules of Golf is
(05:37):
played by the Society of St. Andrew's Golfers from eighteen twelve.
It reads, quote, if the player's ball strikes his adversary
or his caddy, the adversary loses the whole. If it
strikes his own caddy, the player loses the hole, Which
means you could technically aim for the other player and
if you hit him or his caddy, I guess you
win the hole, which does add like maybe a little
(05:59):
bit of excite you've been to the game, but also
kind of sounds awful. But you know that said, the
rule does clarify that it has to be with the ball,
like if you strike an opposing player with your club,
then you lose the I'm glad they everyone. Yeah, I
do feel like if that's how golf was still played.
You get a lot more people watching it on TV,
for sure. I think the ratings will go through the roof. Okay,
(06:21):
so what's your next fact? So this isn't exactly a
rule change, but it is a big change to a
board game I loved as a kid, which is Clue.
So you know, plenty of board games have been altered
over the years. Scrabble allows words like yo and za
which is short for pizza. Um it really it allows
both those words. Now, Yeah, it's crazy. My grandmom would
be incensed. Monopoly got rid of the iron and the thimble.
(06:43):
Thimble was actually my favorite piece, but they've replaced it
for like a cat and a rubber ducky and I
think there's even a penguin in the mix for some reason.
But one of the things I only just learned about
was that Clue killed off Mrs White, who was the
housekeeper slash cook character, and so who they replace her with?
So they're play her with Dr Orchid, who's this PhD
in plant toxicology. And initially, you know, when I read this,
(07:06):
I was just like stomping about and her rumping about,
like why do games have to change? Or whatever, so angry,
But then I read orchids backstory and I kind of
love it. So apparently she's the adopted daughter of the
mentions owner, and she was expelled from a fancy Swiss
boarding school after a quote a near fatal daffodil poisoning
(07:26):
insult here, which is already hilarious. And and then she
was homeschooled by Mrs White, the woman she suspiciously replaces.
She's also Asian, which Slate points out makes her the
only recognizable person of color in the game, but Hasbro's
statement about it is really the best they wrote. Quote,
it was a difficult decision to say goodbye to Mrs White,
but after seventy years of suspicious activity, we decided that
(07:49):
one of the characters had to go. But it does
seem like a reasonable replacement. Well, here's something I've always
wondered as a fan of the show Jeopardy, and that is,
why is it that only the winner gets to keep
the cash? You know, and Wheel of Fortune or other
games shows, if you win some money along the way,
you actually do get to keep. But Jeopardy wasn't always
(08:10):
this way. So in the original version of the show,
this aired way Back in the sixties, the second and
third place would get to keep their winnings. But in
nineteen sixties seven there was a contestant who ruined it
for everyone. So he appeared on Jeopardy with the sole
intent of winning enough money to buy an engagement ring,
which seems honest enough. Midway through the game, when he'd
(08:30):
amassed enough winnings, he just shut his mouth and stopped playing.
Get it So like, he got to a certain amount
of money and knew if that was it, and you know,
he thought if he answered any questions wrong, he might
lose that money. And so this exposed a real flaw
in the system this TV exactly. So when the show
returned for primetime, the show runners wanted to make sure
that didn't happen again. After all, I mean, like, it
(08:52):
could be disastrous if all three players decided halfway through
the game to stop and just say, like, okay, we've
won enough money. So they changed the rules so that
only the winner would take home the cash, and it
turned into a horse race to you know, to Final Jeopardy,
which is a great story. But what about the guy, Like,
do you know anything more about him? I was reading
on a Jeopardy blog, and he actually spent that money
(09:14):
in the right place. According to a book written on
Jeopardy twenty three years later, when the game show checked
in on him, he was actually still married to that woman.
So it is kind of a nice story. I do
like that. Well, here's something I didn't realize. Did you
know that up until seven not all ice hockey players
have to wear helmets when they played? Oh god, it
seems a wholeful, I know, and in the nineties, but
you know, I'm obviously not a huge hockey fan. I'll
(09:37):
get into the Olympics, and you know, I used to
play like floor hockey and jim but it's not a
sport I pretend to watch. But you know, it really
does seem unimaginable to me that all the way up
until ninety seven, you can still play the game without
a helmet. But it's for an interesting reason. So apparently,
the NHL has mandated headgear since nineteen seventy nine season
(09:58):
in particular, but according to The New York Times, players
were then allowed to decide for themselves whether they wanted
to wear a helmet, although if they didn't, they were
required to sign a waiver. So this one player, Craig McTavish.
He was grandfathered in during his rookie season and he
played helmetless for sixteen years until the seven season. And
at the time he said he was really lucky too
(10:20):
and grateful to have left the game without any serious
head injuries. So, you know, reporters asked him, why didn't
you just wear the thing? And he just shrugged and
said it was a comfort thing. Wow, I kind of
want to see a brain study on this guy. That
that's pretty well all. Well, here's a quick one for
you that you you might have heard before, But there's
this old fact that baseball umpires used to call games
from padded rocking chairs, which you know kind of sounds
(10:42):
a little bit lazy. Yeah, I mean that fact always
reminded me of that Seinfeld where George gets a security
guard a chair because he wants them to be able
to take a load off. But then the debate what
type of chairs is comfortable but not too comfortable? You know,
and of course in that case it's disastrous. But back
to baseball, So the rocking chair bits seems it suspect
and maybe that happened once or twice, but I couldn't
(11:03):
really find any credible evidence of it. But what is
true is that umpiring was a totally different thing in
the early days of baseball. At the time, baseball was
this gentleman's pastime, and umpires were always volunteers. In fact,
it was considered an honor to be asked to umpire game,
because it meant you were a person of some standing,
and you know that you were known for your fairness,
(11:25):
and their clothing kind of showed this. So I found
this in the Society for American Baseball Research, but in
early woodcuts of baseball games quote, the idealized stereotype of
an umpire was a distinguished looking fellow, often attired in
a top hat Prince Albert coat and Caine, who stood
neeled or sat on a stool a respectable distance from
home plate along the first baseline. I kind of wish
(11:47):
this was still the case, the top of everything, exactly.
And of course this the game became more competitive, and
umpiring felt less like an honor and more like a hassle.
These umpires got paid, and they put on these new
uniform arms and move them closer into the plate to
make better calls and and all of that. But it's
it's interesting to read that history. Well, I I do
know we've got two more facts to go, So why
(12:09):
don't we go to a little break first and then
get back to this. Welcome back to parts and genius.
We we're talking rules and changes in sports, all right, Mango,
(12:30):
we got one last fact each. What's your last one
going to be? So one of the things I'm always
fascinated by is how sports often changed their rules based
on like one player's dominance. And uh, you think about
how like there was no dunking college basketball for number
of years because of lou L Cinder, who you know
changed his name to Koreem abdul Jabbar and was just
unstoppable in college. And then the same was true for
(12:52):
Wilt Chamberlain, who I guess used to lob up his
free throws and then jump in the lane and dunk them,
which is why players can't cross the plane of the
free throw line, you know while shooting. Oh I didn't
know that. Yeah, And and there are lots of stories
like that. But do you know that when Darren Sprowles
was a tiny kid and played football, his league instituted
a rule that he wasn't allowed to run any sweeps
because he scored every single time he was handed the ball,
(13:13):
and random you were just so dominant in this like
peewee league that they banned him from running it and
they changed the rules just for him. And he was
super fast. I could see that happening. I've not heard that,
and and terrifying he was that good at such a
young age. So how are you going to close this
one out? All? Right? I think I want to go
with a fact about kickball, as I mentioned earlier, So
(13:34):
did you know that in the original rules for kickball,
and this from the nineteen twenties, was that there was
actually no picture. So apparently teams were supposed to have
fifteen people on each side and you just placed the
ball on home plate and then you just ran up
and kicked it. Also, kids had to stand twenty feet
away from you, and if the ball didn't go that far,
it was an automatic out, which I guess sounds fine.
(13:57):
But the strangest thing about the original rules is that
there were only two bases and you didn't have to
advance the basis when someone kicked the ball, So I
guess technically fourteen kids could be standing on that base
when the last kicker was at and then they would
all run home at one time, which just sounds bananas.
I know, it sounds like chaos. I am glad they
(14:19):
changed the rules, but I also kind of want to
see like an old timey kickball league like show up
on you know, on playgrounds somewhere or in ESPN three
some weekend. So I do think you win the fact
off with that fact. All right, Well, thanks so much
and thank you guys for listening. We'll be back with
a full length episode tomorrow
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.