PNC Park
Originally uploaded by chrismaverick.
so its been a sport filled weekend for me. beststephi has subjected me to countless hours of US Open coverage. I had a worked a wrestling show in Ohio yesterday, and today Steph and I played tennis ourselves (and I handily beat her, I might add, because I am just that awesome).
Anyway, while laying in bed watching yet more US Open coverage, I began telling her about this half-baked theory I had come up with when I was younger. Basically, the way I see it, in the vast history of our planet man has only managed to come up with six sports. That’s it thousands of years of civilization, a multi-billion dollar world wide atheletic industry and we only have six sports.
- Get the ball to the other end of the field
- Hit the target with the ball
- Don’t let the ball hit the net
- Run faster than the other guy
- Beat the other guy up
- Baseball
I defy anyone to come up with a sport that doesn’t fit nicely into one of those six buckets.
Granted sometimes one massages the rules in some trivial way in order to pretend its a different sport. Like hockey, which is basically the same game as soccer, football, and basketball, except the ball is hard and flat. Or all the variations of hit the target with the ball that use arrows or bullets or darts or whatnot. And of course there are lots of variations of racing that instead of judging who runs the fastest, instead judges who can jump the highest, throw the farthest or lift the heaviest weight. But they’re all essentially the same.
Baseball seems like its kind of a unique sport (well, it and cricket), and I always give it its own category for convenience sake, but really, its just a combination of the game of hit the target, and a couple kinds of racing. Really, when you think about it, baseball is a seriously complex game. You’d think there’d be more games like it that took interesting variations on the other games and mixed them together. But no, most of them just sit in one of the 5 buckets or another. Ok, I’m not so sure about Calvinball.
It has been my goal over the years to get the list to as few buckets as possible. I’m not positive the games of racing and beating up the other guy are really all that different. But I’ve always erred on the side of considering them different for the simple reason of direction interaction. Whereas in the racing events, one tries to accomplish his goal more or less independently of the other competitor, in the long honored game of beat the other guy up, you must… well directly confront the competitor… and beat him up. This is why professional wrestling is such a pure sport.
Now while watching tennis, I really started thinking about how it differs from the other sports. All the other sports have a decisive end. And they have rules one must work within. In football for instance, there are certain formations you may use and if you deviate from those, you are penalized. In racing you are DQ’d if you start early. In pro-wrestling if you hold the ropes you must break the hold, or be DQ’d. In baseball you have to run the bases in a certain order. etc. In any sporting event of all of the other types, one can essentially play a perfect game by having neither competitor ever break a rule and therefore determine who the better man is. But in tennis, the rules of conduct simply determine who gets the points. The entire point of the game of hit the ball over the net is to keep playing until the other guy eventually accidentally breaks one of the rules (lets the ball hit the ground, or hit the net or go out of bounds). Essentially the only penalty for anything you can do in tennis is that the other guy gets points. The perfect, no rules broken, game of tennis/volleyball/pong essentially goes on forever.
So am I missing anything? Is there some sport that I am unaware of that doesn’t fit in one of my buckets? Is there some group of sports that you think deserve their own bucket? Is it clear what sports go in which bucket? Is my analysis of how any of the buckets works wrong? As always, I am interested in everyone’s point of view.
Occupational Skill Sports + Judged sports
Especially rodeo sports, lumberjack competitions, and maybe fishing have similarities to some of those categories but it seems that besting nature is more the focus. Consider bull riding, log rolling and sport fishing seem different enough to count as a seperate category.
Diving, gymnastics, ice skating, ball room dancing, all are very physical, athletic sports where form, artistry and execution are ‘quantitatively’ judged.
Re: Occupational Skill Sports + Judged sports
and all ae essentially racing, albeit more complex than other forms. I used to actually consider the gymnastics group as different than racing because of the judging, but then I got to thinking that the manner in which a race is judged, be it someone awarding points or someone paying attention to who crosses the line first doesn’t really make it not a race. Its just that some referees are more involved in the outcome of a sport than other referees. For instance, there are more subjective calls in football than there are hockey, but they’re still the same sport.
Re: Occupational Skill Sports + Judged sports
If you want to change the category to ‘Quantitatively doing something better than all your opponents’ including beating a clock, doing something longer than any other (worlds strongest man type stuff applies), and performing a skill rated by subjective judging – then it could be a rather broad category with significant nuances.
Re: Occupational Skill Sports + Judged sports
yeah, I’ll grant that. I mean, I don’t want to end up in a situation where we say that all sports essentially boil down to “do it better than the other guy.” But what I am really getting at is that the sport of racing essentially boils down to “take one specific skill on the roleplaying character sheet of life” and test it indirectly against the other guys skill.” As opposed to the sport of fighting where it’s “test it directly against the other guy’s skill.” Want could still argue that all sports boil down to those two categories, but my intent is to say that many of them, say the net game, have a more complex rule driven measurement as opposed to just saying “Williams can hit the ball harder than Sharapova.”
Re: Occupational Skill Sports + Judged sports
the “do it better than the other guy” category wouldn’t be complete anyway- hackysack is a cooperative sport with no winner or loser.
Re: Occupational Skill Sports + Judged sports
yeah, and to be fair, I think there are probably many out there who would argue that as it lacks competition, it is not a true sport. Though in my current taxonomy it fits nicely as a net game, I think.
Alternatively, you could argue that its a cooperative race, and that you are attempting to keep the sack afloat as long as possible, rating against previous attempts or other teams. I like it as an unscored net game better though.
Re: Occupational Skill Sports + Judged sports
Hockey and Football? You mean soccer. Hockey is a keep it out of the net game, football is get it to the other end of the field. And there are plenty of subjective calls in hockey but the refs are just so much better at controlling games you can barely tell. (the fights are mostly staged btw)
Re: Occupational Skill Sports + Judged sports
Oh, don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean to say that there aren’t subjective calls. When I wrote that I was specifically thinking about the call of “did the team score or not” and about 15 min. later I realized that I should have used Football and Basketball as a better example. There is almost never a disputed goal in basketball.
Any sport involving referees/judges is always going to have subjective calls. “Was he offsides?” “Did he slash?” “Did the ball hit the line?”
Re: Occupational Skill Sports + Judged sports
Basketball and Football are still in different categories according to your system. Football and rugby are similar sports and disputes are rare in rugby because a touchdown is exactly that – touch the ball down in the endzone. none of this imaginary plane stuff. what’s next imaginary balls and make believe field goal posts?
Re: Occupational Skill Sports + Judged sports
how do you reckon Basketball and Football as different categories? Size of the target? I will grant that football has more of an aspect of hit the target with the ball than football does, but I think the important point here is that you’re vying against the other team to get the same ball in your scoring zone (no matter how big small) as opposed to bowling, darts, golf, billiards, cattle wrangling, etc. where you’re aiming at a target with the ball and trying to hit it separately from your opponent trying to do the same. Also, I think curling is in this category. You know… if there’s anyone on earth who actually totally understands the rules of curling. It is the sport of kings, you know.
Re: Occupational Skill Sports + Judged sports
football:
1. Get the ball to the other end of the field
basketball:
3. Don’t let the ball hit the net
Re: Occupational Skill Sports + Judged sports
by the other end of the field I mostly mean “the scoring area.” I could imagine a game played with one ball and a big basket in the middle of a big circular court where both teams competed to be the one who put the ball in that central basket. I’d say that’s essentially football/basketball/hockey as well.
Whereas by the net game, I tend to mean a game wherein the ball is passed back and forth and you are waiting for the other side to fuck up. Tennis, volleyball and ping pong fit this category. So does racketball, depsite the fact that there is no net and both players are “on the same side” of the court.
With basketball, you’re not so much trying to not hit the net as you are trying to keep the other guy from hitting it, which to me is no different than trying to keep the other guy from putting the ball past a line 100 yards away.
Re: Occupational Skill Sports + Judged sports
I think mentioning the net threw me off because I find football, rugby, aussie rules rather different in form, structure and spirit from hockey, soccer and basketball. The treament of possession, field position and pacing of play are quite significant in my opinion.
Re: Occupational Skill Sports + Judged sports
yeah… I mean there’s definite differences. For instance turn based possession and plays make the gameplay drastically different from freeform “go get the ball” that hockey, soccer and basketball have, but I think the base game is the same. I feel similarly about the difference between boxing and fencing. The fact that one requires a weapon whereas the other forbids it is simply a detail, the ultimate game of “combat” being the same.
other sport archetypes
Hacky-sack: suspend the ball in midair cooperatively for as long as possible.
Figure Skating/Skateboarding/Synchronized Swimming/Gymnastics/etc.: graceful exertion
Weightlifting: maximum exertion
Re: other sport archetypes
interesting… I’ve never actually considered hacky-sack before, but just to think about it for a moment, I think that at essence hackysack is still the game of “don’t let the ball hit the net,” it’s just that the net is essentially replaced with the ground. I’ll grant though its a pretty large deviation from the standard volleyball, tennis versions. But if you stop thinking of the net game as tennis and instead boil it down to its essence, pong, I think its clearly the same game.
Figure Skating, et al goes to what I was talking about with Tommy. I used to consider “judged skill challenges” as their own sport, but then I realized that they are essentially racing. Maybe I need a better term for it. But here’s where it becomes clear. Downhill Slalom is clearly a racing event. But several skiiers participate in several ski events. If we move on to ski jumping, we see what at first appears to not be a race, but then upon closer look, it is… We’re just judging based on distance rather than time. From there we can look at the ski trick competitions and again, we’re effectively judging skill rather than speed or distance, but we’re still just measuring a physical skill and comparing ratings. In fact, in a perfect world, figure skating for instance, has no subjective element. In fact, they’re constantly adding scoring rules to skating and gymnastics to try to remove the ambiguities. One day, they’ll judge trick competitions by computer like in SSX or something.
Weight lifting also counts as racing. As does shot put and other throwing sports. Perhaps renaming the category “arbitrary physical skill test” would make it more obvious.
I would argue that “Don’t let the ball hit the Net” is a modified form of “Get the ball to the other end of the field.”
I used to think that too… Years ago, someone, don’t remember who, convinced me that the difference is that in “Don’t let the ball hit the net” you’re essentially trying to keep the ball in play as long as possible. There is no limit to gameplay. Where as in “get the ball to the other end of the field” You’re trying to get the ball into a specific goal point like past a line or in a basket. I think its a weak distinction, since one could argue that in tennis, I’m trying to get the ball “past the other guy” but I think one of the other strong separators is that in football, basketball, et al, I am specifically trying to not let the ball fall into control of the other team, I want to keep it in my possession as long as possible. Whereas in tennis and volleyball, I am passing the ball into their possession and hoping they fail to return it back to mine.
But yeah, I see your point.
where does fencing fit in?
And cheerleading?
fencing is easy. beating up the other guy. The fact that one uses swords instead of fists is no different than one using rackets instead of fists in the net game (tennis vs. volleyball). The fact that you’re not trying to “hurt” the other guy is simply a social convenience. Its still sword fighting. Just as in wrestling you’re trying to pin the other guy rather than actually knocking him out.
cheerleading is harder, but is of the same ilk as gymnastics and such, which I am currently counting as racing (see much discussion above).
If cheerleading is racing then so is fencing – racing to hit the other person first, as is soccer – racing to get more goals first, and football, etc.
I sort of got into this with above but I will synopsize.
All sports are effectively, “i can do this better than you.” But a race is a competition of measurement of singular (or effectively singular) skill where the competitors try to best each other indirectly. In a cheerleading competition in a cheerleading contest the team is attempting to rate a score on their routine higher than the other teams will. In the Indy 500, even though everyone is racing at the same time, they are actually competing against a clock, represented by the other players. While there is contact and reaction to the other drivers, wrecking the other cars isn’t really the goal. As I said to above as well, I would entertain that scored skill sports (cheerleading, figure skating, snow board half pipe) could be dumped into a different category than statistical measurement sports (horse racing, weight lifting, high jump), but the distinction isn’t really a hard line. Its mostly based on the perceived subjective autonomy the judges have. So its not really the sport having a deviance, as it is a flaw in the human referees.
Fencing on the other hand is a fight. Granted its not to the death sword fighting, but essentially it is a tamed down version of such. You are attempting to strike the other person signifying a kill before they can strike you. It is similar in this respect to wrestling. In a “real fight” the opponent would not concede defeat simply because his shoulder were pinned to the mat for 3 seconds, nor would he concede defeat because he had a tiny poke to the chest with the sword. But it is that direct competitive struggle that puts fencing and wrestling into the fight category. Similarly I would also lump arm wrestling and demolition derby in here.
Soccer and football on the other hand are not races. The goal of soccer isn’t to score goals first or fastest or even better. It is to score as many as possible in the set time limit while simultaeneously keeping the opponent from doing the same.
The effective gameplay between soccer and fencing or cheerleading and fencing is simply much greater than the effective gameplay between fencing and wrestling.
Where do you put things like billiards, snooker, etc?
hit the target with the ball. Golf as well.
And what about poker?
I was wondering when someone would bring that up.
I dearly dearly dearly love poker…
it is not a sport. Sports involve physical challenges and skills. Poker is a game, yes, but not a sport. The same is true of Chess and Jeopardy.
Dodgeball? Paintball? Do they fall under “hit the target with the ball”, or does the fact that the target is a person put it into a different category?
Steph and I were discussing Dodgeball last night. I think it pretty much fits into the category of “beat up the other guy.” I’m quite certain that paintball falls there. It’s just as much a simulated fight as fencing is.
I have no idea if cricket fits into these buckets or not, because nobody really has any freakin’ idea how to play cricket. Maybe it’s just baseball.
to the extent that I understand it, I think cricket is baseball, but I totally admit that I don’t really get it.
cricket rules
Any sport which takes 3 days to play one game is truly the king of all leisure sports. We were playing yesterday in the park with a tennis ball and old logs. The scoring wasn’t close to right but there were many overs, innings, outs, wickets and bowls to go around
Re: cricket rules
so you’re saying you don’t actually know all the rules, but since no one does, it doesn’t matter and you can play anything?
yep, might as well be calvinball.
Re: cricket rules
It was more like batting practice … you copy what you see on t.v. to practice the skills aspects but the overall strategy and scoring is still cloudy. The bowling form (straight arm, try to hit the wicket) the batting stance and strategies (bunt, swing away, side swat) and the running part (back and forth from wicket to wicket).
when I was little my first experience of a baseball game was hearing a broadcast on the radio. I knew what the field looked like but not the rules about bases. When the announcer said the bases were ‘loaded’ I pictured 3 or 4 players at each bases.
Re: cricket rules
George Carlin once did a bit where he was talking about ways to make baseball more exciting. He said for instance you should be able to run the 4 bases in any order you want. And you shouldn’t have to drop the bat after you hit the ball. Wouldn’t it be much more interesting if the guy hit the ball and then started running straight at the pitcher waving the bat around like a crazy man trying to get to second?
Re: cricket rules
Sounds more like a backyard cricket fed…
Re: cricket rules
oooh! it would be so awesome if there were a backyard cricket video game with like the insane clown posse and new jack in it.
Re: cricket rules
A thumbtack and Flourescent-lightbulb cricket match. Everyone wears cutoff shorts, black t-shirts and bandanas. D-fuckin-lux.
Re: cricket rules
where do I sign up?
Re: cricket rules
Plus the fact that in cricket, you must stop for Tea. Seriously. Also the fact that an entiree Douglas Adams book is based on it.
Re: cricket rules
all sports would be better if you stopped and took a break for snacks.
Golf?
Croquet?
Curling?
And, of course, Hashing?
Golf – Hit target with the ball
Croquet – Get the ball to the other end of the field (granted with aspects of hit target with the ball along the way, but the primary game is football)
Curling – Hit the target with the ball (as are bowling and shuffleboard)
Hashing – Racing.
What about roller derby? man, I am so friggin’ sick of roller derby.
defensive strategy of the blockers aside, I’d say roller derby is essentially a race between the jammers. The scoring does make it a bit odd though.
Why are you sick of roller derby? Have you been going to it a lot or something?