Recently, I participated in a fun recreational full-court
pickup basketball game with a group of mutual friends. What was exceedingly
rare about this game was that THERE WAS NO ARGUING ABOUT CALLS! Fouls were few
and in between but certainly non-existent, and when they were committed the
offending party owned up to it quickly and “checked” the ball to the offended
party and got play rolling again, no complaining, whining, dirty looks, or proclamations
of innocence. Even out of bounds calls were very agreeable, with one party
either owning up to being the last to have “touched the ball” or in extreme
cases the “shoot for it” rule was applied immediately and one side “shot for
the ball.”
I point this out because these type of pickup games happen
EXTREMELY rarely. Anyone who’s ever been to a public gym knows this. There’s
always somebody, one guy, or a couple guys, who’s complaining about everything,
and in extreme cases more time is spent arguing about calls than actually
playing the game. These things deteriorate down to one side not relenting and
not recognizing the non-existent stakes of the situation and that playing and
having fun is more important than getting the call right or being afforded their
moral rights. Sometimes it’s advisable to just take a step back and say, “I don’t
agree with this call, but for the good of the game let’s just keep playing.”
Admittedly this is a harder stance to take than to say and advice other people
do, but I’ve done it and it’s definitely refreshing and appreciated when others
also do it.
I think the problem with sports, especially in basketball,
is the pro teams we see on the court who do NOT set good examples. I have never
watched an NBA game in its entirety where everyone just played basketball; at
least one coach or player will always give the refs a hard time, regardless of
whether they’re in the right or not. In fact, it happens sporadically, often occurring
after EVERY foul call or dead ball situation, where one side is ALWAYS offended
if the play is even somewhat close or questionable. It’s really not a good
example and I wish basketball was much more gentlemanly and players raised
their hands to acknowledge fouls once in a while, and not just obvious/
intentional fouls. I realize these players are making millions of dollars and
their egos are on the line and millions of fans are watching who have a rooting
interest in having every play go their way.
In other sports it’s the same: baseball managers used to
curse out the umps if a call didn’t go their way and bark out of the dugout at
balls and strike calls (they still do) until instant replay was implemented.
Football players crowd around the refs pleading their case when a flag is
thrown or automatically do the “throw the flag” motion when they get up to
indicate to refs when they’ve been fouled.
As I may have insinuated earlier, I’m in the (probably
minority) camp of “we don’t have to get every call right.” Sports have been
lined up so that there are enough plays to compensate a narrow miss here and
there; there’s always the next play/ batter/ shot for players and teams to compensate
for that narrow error. It’s not like these are monumental errors that people
are getting away with and travesties; these are minute calls that were
basically 50-50 to begin with that could have gone either way that the ref
called either way; life and sports sometimes have a way of balancing all of
those lucky bounces out one way or another without having to slow down the game
too much to go over instant replay or stand around a pickup basketball court
arguing about who touched the ball last.
I don’t know how this became an argument on disallowing new
instant replay systems into sports but that’s my stance I guess; let’s just
enjoy playing the games and less about getting every single call right.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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