rules Page 13 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The 10 Commandments Of Basketball Refereeing
Last week, FIBA Asia held its annual referee clinic in Singapore. Along with boring clerical matters like getting licensed, attendees also received a pen! With a roll-out scroll featuring FIBA's 10 Referee Commandments. Like Moses down from the mountain, a Reddit user has passed along the wisdom con...

Last Night Was Probably The Closest We'll Ever Get To A Super Bowl Fair-Catch Kick, The Rarest Play In The NFL
When the Ravens intentionally took a safety, to give themselves better field position and run a few seconds off the clock, it brought the 49ers to within three points. It was the smart call, but it also raised the possibility of the rarest of all football plays—the fair-catch kick. It's only been at...

"What A Joke This Sport Is!" Jeff Van Gundy Is Not A Fan Of The Designated Hitter Rule
The Thunder's beat-down of the Lakers last night got a little boring towards the end, as beat-downs will, and unlike some spectators, Mike Breen and Jeff Van Gundy were contractually obligated to remain in their seats. Naturally, talk turned to the designated hitter, and—like many people, but in h...

Eliminating Kickoffs Would Ruin Football, According To A Kicker And A Kick Return Specialist
Yesterday, we discussed the possibility that the NFL will do away with kickoffs and instead institute a punt-or-4th-and-long option. On its face, the idea seems logical, maybe even preferable, if not necessarily a top-priority reform. The NFL can frame it as an issue of player safety, but truthfully...

Roger Goodell Is Thinking About Eliminating Kickoffs. How Would It Affect NFL Offenses?
Before we start laughing at Roger Goodell's idea—by way of Buccaneers coach Greg Schiano—of eliminating kickoffs and replacing them with punts, let's first analyze what this would mean for the game. The suggestion would work like this: Instead of kicking off after a score or to start a half of play,...

Here Are The Three Flops That Have Led To NBA Warning So Far This Season
Just before the season began, the NBA outlined its new procedure for curbing flops, the habit of exaggerating contact that ran over Jeff Van Gundy's dog when Van Gundy was only a young boy....

The Jets, To The Patriots: "Hang On A Minute"
The Patriots' hurry-up offense is quick—too quick, according to the Jets. They point to a crucial moment in the Patriots win over the Broncos two weeks ago in which the Patriots had sped up their offense so much between snaps that the Broncos didn't have time to make substitutions. That's not fair: ...

The NBA Releases A Video Demonstrating The Seven Illegal Flops That Will Get Players Fined This Season
The NBA released a video yesterday of all the flops that they officially consider flops now that the NBA is officially considering flops. It has a weird narrator who uses unnecessarily colorful language, which is great. We get a "grossly embellished fall to the floor" from Reggie Evans, an "over-e...

Why Jump A Kneeldown? Because It Worked Two Years Ago
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There's No Fighting In A Victory Formation; Or, Why Greg Schiano Is The Worst Kind of NFL Coach
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Australian Football Player Falls To His Death In Las Vegas
John McCarthy, a player for the Australian football club Port Adelaide, fell to his death early Sunday morning in Las Vegas. McCarthy was on an end-of-season trip with the rest of his team when he became separated from the group, according to club officials. Security camera footage shows McCarthy wa...

James Naismith's Handwritten Notes On The First Basketball Game
These are handwritten notes from James Naismith describing the circumstances of the first game of basketball. They are not newly discovered, they were part of an auction from December 2006, but that does not make them any less fascinating. In all, there are eight pages worth of Naismith's thoughts a...

What On Earth Is Happening Here? Apparently, A Wild Finish To An Aussie Rules Football Game
I'm not entirely sure what's going here, but I'll be damned if it isn't exciting. It comes to us from down under, where the first-place West Coast Eagles met the lowly Brisbane Lions this weekend in Australian Football League action. With the Lions trailing by three points in the closing moments, ...

The 11th Pick In The MLB Player Draft Is Cursed, According To Science
In a perfect world, the first person selected in the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft every year would be the best performing player from that crop. The second player would perform slightly below that, and so on and so forth. Of course, it doesn't work that way. For every Ken Griffey Jr...
![Cole Hamels Broke Only One Of Baseball's Unwritten Rules [UPDATE: And Now He's Suspended]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/17luvdcne9zirjpg.jpg)
Cole Hamels Broke Only One Of Baseball's Unwritten Rules [UPDATE: And Now He's Suspended]
Much has been made of young Bryce Harper's first few days in the majors. He has a cannon for an arm. He gets on base. He makes good with the locals. He steals home. And now he's caused the Phillies' Cole Hamels to pull off what Nationals GM Mike Rizzo considers the most "classless, gutless chickens...

Aussie Footballer Robbie Gray Liquefied His Knee
Robbie Gray, the leading goal kicker for Port Adelaide Power last year, suffered this gruesome looking knee injury with less than a minute left to play in a game against Collingwood at Etihad Stadium....

Baseball's Unwritten Rules, Uncovered After 26 Years
A few weeks ago, I found myself in Austin and happened upon one of these flea market-type warehouses. It's like a ginormous, impersonal yard sale: People come with their stuff, set it up in their little station, put a price tag on everything, and hope it eventually sells. As it turns out, one of the...

20 Rules For Your Super Bowl Party
Originally published Jan. 29, 2009....

The Entire NFL Challenge System Needs To Be Destroyed
Drew Magary's Thursday Afternoon NFL Dick Joke Jamboroo runs every Thursday during the NFL season. Buy Drew's book, The Postmortal, through here. Find more of his stuff at his Twitter feed....

Is Winning The Overtime Coin Toss A Blessing Or A Curse?
We're doing a season-long NFL roundtable with our friends at Slate. Check back here each week as a rotating cast of football watchers discusses the weekend's key plays, coaching decisions, and traumatic brain injuries....