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