I was thinking "honor of our founder"? Just because it is in the "Washington" Post? Pretty lame. But then I saw where a lot of the research is being done at George Washington University, so that makes a little more sense.
I'm glad they mentioned David Berkoof and the Berkoff Blastoff, when they change the rules specifically to thwart you, you know that you've done something pretty interesting.
I remember the rule change and thought that the only reason people didn't spend so much time underwater afterwards was because they weren't allowed to anymore. Apparently not. Even with a 15 meter limit a lot of distance was going unused.
Unfogged: Now without Ogged, but still with the same old boring swimming posts.
Someone could make a list of players who changed the rulebook. Sandy Koufax / Bob Gibson lowered the pitchers' mound, and I think Wilt did something.
And there's the forgotten guy who started putting with a pool cue.
Back in the day I was a Koufax fan, but Bob Gobson's best year was the best ever by anyone.
Grace Kelly's dad changed the rules for Olympic participation with a lawsuit. He also changed singles rowing style with a shorter stroke.
Ah, the dolphin kick, most compelling of all kicks.
6: When you're tired of the dolphin kick, FL, you're tired of pretty fucking normal.
I fail to see the point of the rule changes. Why does FINA care how much people use this kick?
Why does FINA care how much people use this kick?
Because then the distinctions between the various strokes start to fade into the background. To what extent can you be said to be competing in the butterfly if you're swimming half the distance underwater?
Eddie Gaedel was another of sports history's great rule changers:
American League president Will Harridge, saying Veeck was making a mockery of the game, voided Gaedel's contract the next day.
And:
Initially, major league baseball struck Gaedel from its record book, as if he had not been in the game.
11: But in the end the rule that Gaedel changed was that the commissioner reviewed all contracts, no explicit height restriction. (I actually posted about Gaedel very late in the infamous "Pistonius" thread as an example where a sport reacted badly to an advantage gained by a "disability" and contrasted it with the later acceptance of sprinters used exclusively as pinch runners (Herb Washington was one) by the A's in the 70s.)
I thought one time I had posted a list of "rule chagers" in sports but cannot locate it.
Here are some .
Basketball:
Chamberlain - several including no jumping from the foul line.
Mikan - 3 seconds.
Alcindor - temporary NCAA dunk rule
Bob Kurland (7-footer in the '40s) - defensive goaltending . (He is also reputed to be first to dunk in a game.)
Lacrosse:
Jim Brown - Must hold the stick(whatever they call it) out away from you. Supposedly he was about unstoppable at Syracuse.
Football:
Ken Stabler and other Raiders - Can't advance a fumble, after they basically rolled a ball into the end zone at the end of a game.
Turns out there is a whole long list of "personal" NFL rules at the bottom of this Wikipedia entry.
Stormcrow: tirelessly adding value while the nation sleeps.
Stormcrow: tirelessly groggily adding value trivia while the nation sleeps cursing insomnia.
Grace Kelly's dad changed the rules for Olympic participation with a lawsuit
Am I right in remembering that as a bricklayer, he was held to be someone who worked with his body, and therefore had an unfair advantage over "amateurs" who didn't?
"The Olympics" is so traditional-swpl it's not funny; I've come to despise them, although I can't resist the track cycling if it's ever televised.
I re-researched after posting, and it turned out that his primary conflict was with an exclusive British men's club which ran a regatta, and that the conflict with the Olympic Committee was a spinoff.
But the issue that as a former common laborer, Kelly was not an amateur.
Marrying off daughters to broke quasi-noblemen was a common practice of American parvenu millionaires.
16, 17: I did not realize how extreme those rules were, but it does appear that Henley and the English ARA had clauses that specifically excluded anyone "who is or has been by trade or employment for wages a mechanic, artisan or labourer." It seems to have finally been removed when an Australian crew of policemen was excluded in 1936.
The Olympics started square in that tradition and has been associated with its share of political dinosaurs. One of my favorite quotes is from Avery Brundage in 1971: ""The Berlin Games were the finest in modern history...I will accept no dispute over that fact".