This is likely to be a bit all over the place but over the last couple of days I've been thinking about how 'there are types of cheating that while outside the rules of the sport are still seen as being within the bounds of that sport.'

That quote is from this blog post about Mclaren F1 claiming a tax deduction for the fine they had to pay FIA (which is very interesting in itself but not the focus of this).

In my experience, fouling (and other rule breaking) in UK football is never celebrated. But why not? If you can break the rules and suffer the designated punishment and still come out ahead then why not do it?

Part of my thinking about this has been prompted by starting to play handball. Fouling is a real part of the game, you commit a foul, the opponent gets to keep the ball but you've broken the momentum of the opposition or stopped a scoring chance and this is celebrated.

I don't really have anything more to say but I was wondering about other sports or even these sports in other countries, we all know about Italian and South American darks arts in football.

Is the UK football thing really due to Corinthian values? Rugby has a tradition of players breaking the rules in scrums etc doesn't it?

Funny you should mention that; i was wondering much the same thing in the context of Brianiek's post on the Democratic responsibility thread, in which he seems to claim that repaying your debts is simply a matter of economic best choice, not "responsibility" i.e. morality.

There's definitely a difference between the free-kick/yellow-card/2-minute-minor/sin-bin "tactical foul" offences (the sort which constitute the entire last five minutes of your typical basketball game), and the red-card/ejection/criminal-prosecution thingies; but i don't recall ever seeing a satisfactorily explicit distinction between the two.

I'm not someone who celebrates cheating but at times it is the right thing to do from a pragmatic standpoint. For example when Luis Suarez conceded the penalty vs. Ghana he gave his team a better mathematical chance of winning the game, its what is known in basketball as a "smart foul".

Yes, that's what we're trying to distinguish. Tactical fouls are, well, good tactics; "cheating" is never "the right thing to do".

At the time I was on the side of the board that was distraught at Suarez's action (and wanted to punch jv) but now I've come around to the view that it was a legitimate act.

Snooker and golf have traditions of self policing don't they? As does ultimate but then I understand that college ultimate in the us has referees.

Is there a general tradition in north american sports?

10^7 guests wrote:


I think I decided fairly quickly that it was an act of evil genius. I suspect that had a journeyman lower league player done a similar act on the last day of the season and caused his side to avoid relegation, then he would be regarded by his club's fans as a cult hero, similar to Jimmy Glass.

Which is roughly the reaction Suarez got from Uruguayans.

I think a more intriguing question is what the reaction would be to a player who, faced with a similar situation to Suraez/what southportzeb outlines above, chose not to foul. Especially if his instinctive reaction was to reach out to handle, but then a concious thought maybe him take his hand out of the way. Negative in the majority, although with some passionately defending his sense of fair play, is my guess.

Anyway, here is a fascinating discussion about rule infringements that are outside the rules but within the accepted culture (where I would place the Suarez handball), and other offences that are beyond the sporting culture and so could be in the realm of the criminal law

There may be "arbitrators" during matches at the national tournament, but otherwise US college ultimate relies on the same self-enforcing "spirit of the game" concept.


In North American professional and most levels of junior ice hockey (not college or high school), fighting is, strictly speaking, against the rules insofar as it carries a five-minute penalty, but it's regarded part of the game and everyone knows it (we could to a massive thread just on that. In fact, I think we have). Even in college hockey where fighting carries a game misconduct and possible suspension with it, it happens. Some guys decide it's worth it for the psychological impact or their frustration just boils over.

Indeed, a players' penalty minutes are often regarded as a positive statistic. That's counterintuitive because, during the game, it's never really advantageous to take a penalty and go on the penalty kill. Exactly how much of a disadvantage that is will depend on the quality of the teams' respective special teams' unit.

A team that is on the penalty kill a lot is either playing dumb or, as often happens in college hockey, is taking a lot of interference and hooking penalties because they don't match up with the size and speed of the opposition. Same in lacrosse.

I suppose that since fights are usually offsetting penalties, a lot of PIM usually is the mark of a good enforcer/role-player/goon/team-guy. And, all things considered, a team that is never penalized at all is probably not playing physical enough. It's one of those things where if you don't occasionally go too far, you're probably not going far enough.


In basketball, even outside of the last five minutes where the trailing team deliberately fouls (that should be banned, I think), there are so-called "smart fouls." I recall an interview with Michael Jordan where he praised Larry Bird with being very good at choosing when to commit a smart hard foul. I think it's a bit like handball in this respect, although in basketball, players can foul out.


In baseball, there are rules that are routinely flaunted by tradition. The base coaches don't always stand in that box they're supposed to stand in. A batter can erase the back line of the batters box. The umpire has a lot of discretion on how much lip he'll take from a player or a manager (or the fans).

On a play at second or third, the defensive player can just swipe the dirt between the bag and the sliding runner without actually tagging the runner. This is an old convention. The alternative is the guy getting his hand spiked.

Yes, lots of semi-legal-but-traditional stuff in baseball; sign-stealing would probably be somewhere in there too.

In the baseball context, i think something closer to the boundary we're exploring here would be steroid use. To me, clearly unacceptable cheating that should invalidate any related records, but i'm always disappointed at how many of my fellow-'Frisco-fans trot out the But Everybody Else Was Doing It defense.

(And speaking of Offenses To Baseball, TBS's sideline reporter seems to be hoping that his jacket, a sort of orangey beige not found in nature, will match or at least compliment the small furry thing perched on top of his head. #sartorialFAIL)

Reed John wrote:


I'm not sure how you would be able to ban deliberate/tactical fouling in basketball and what you would achieve even if you did so.

In my opinion its more preferable to see a team extend the game by sending their opponent to the foul line than watch the last 24 seconds be dribbled off the clock.

Free throws are the most boring play in sports.

Make all fouls in the last some-small-number of minutes of the game "flagrant" by definition.

Reed John wrote:


Free throws at the end of the game are as dramatic and nerve racking as penalty shoot outs, in my opinion of course. Its telling that career 85% free throw shooters who have hit 7/7 on the night can go 0 for 2 when the game is on the line with < 1:00 left.



Fair enough - in practical terms it could be done, however it would make the game a worse spectacle and I'm sure advertisers and broadcasters would oppose it also.

Here is a simple idea to go alongside calling deliberate late fouls as flagrant. Make the shot clock 12 seconds for any possesion beginning in the last minute rather than 24, and also halve the time allowed before a backcourt violation is called. That gives the team behind a much better chance of a turnover via their hard press, and the team ahead an incentive not to dwadle if possesion is gained but instead make an early pass and get it into the front court.

Reed John wrote:


Players get sent-off in Handball for foul accumulation as well. The relationship is not as direct, as a foul doesn't automatically bring a sin bin, but persisntent fouling by one player will bring a sin-bin, and three two minute sin-bins = red card. A teammate serves the sin bin in that instance.
Of course, for really hard fouls Handball refs can go straight for a red card, but then I guess that Basketball refs can also eject a player if they consider his foul to be too violent.

Reed John wrote:


Back in the very early days of console games (I'm guessing late 80s/early 90s) my mate had an ice hockey game. I don't remember much about the play, but if we got the players to bash into each other, a voice would shout "FIGHT" and the game cut to a shot of the two protagonists facing off. You could then trade uppercuts, basically. It was fantastic.

Fighting is an integral part of every ice hockey video game ever made.

A particularly popular game from the 90s featured players who would bleed from the head after being knocked out with an especially fierce punch

Janik wrote:


Reducing the shot clock to 12 seconds in the last minute is actually a pretty damn good idea. Janik for NBA commish!

Agreed.

This is a much better idea.

ursus arctos wrote:


NHLPA Hockey '93 in fact, as (semi-)famously played in Swingers, where they claim the fighting had been taken out. Fighting was removed, along with the bleeding, in NHL 94 (which they're meant to be playing), but has been in pretty much every other ice hockey game since.