9 Weird and Incredible Rule Changes

And also, I don't know if you've noticed, but he's a dictator, so you could just change the rules for whatever he wants. But all right, So here are a few of the rule changes for North Korean basketball. A slam dunk is three points. If you switch a traditional three pointer, it becomes a four pointer. But if you miss a free throw, you lose a point. Now, this would be highly problematic for players like Shack. I don't think he would do so well in the North Korean

Basketball Association. But and then the last one here is in the final three minutes of a game, every two pointer becomes an eight pointer. That's so crazy, I feel like it honestly sounds like my five year old just changing the rules as you play, just this arbitrary wielding of power, but an eight pointer Also, like, how good would the Warriors be in that system with Steph carry Just draining eight pointers at the end of a game,

kid would be fair at all. But anyway we're reading those rules made me wonder about strange rules and sports and what are the rule changes we might not know about. So that's what today's nine Things is all about. Let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend man Guess show Ticketer and sitting behind the soundproof glass, trying to devise an improved tick tik toe

game with those plastic amphibious Yeah, and he's calling it. Oh, I get it. He's calling tic tac toad. I say, I get it, but I do get to is an amphibian. But that's our good friend and producer Tristan McNeil. He is always up to something interesting, all right. So today's show is all about rules and rule changes in games. I'm curious, do you have any house rules or improved rules for any games that you've played over the years. Yeah,

so I was thinking about this a little. I mean, we had minor variations on games, like we we turned croquet into extreme croquet, and we'd uh we played in snow and ice over like five or six backyards as a kid. Or we used to play basketball in the strange indoor outdoor gym that was walled in on three sides and it had no out of bounds so you could like make these amazing bounced passes to yourself off the wall and trick shots off these like beames. It was.

It was just super fun. But you know, I can't say we thought of anything super creative. Um, you know what. One variation to me that's so much better than the original game, though, is Team Sorry. Have you ever played this? I don't think so. Is it like the game Sorry? Yeah, it's it's exactly like the game Sorry, except you played on teams and and our friend Jeff Rubin introduced me to it. He you know, he does that wonderful Jeff

Reuben Jeff Ruben podcast which everyone should listen to. But what's amazing is that, like you team up with the person who's sitting across from you, and you play with both your pieces, and it just makes the game so much more fun, Like everyone's invested, plus in the rules. At the end of the game, whoever wins or loses, you have to end with a four way high five. So that honestly makes everyone so happy at the end of the game. It's really great. I have a feeling.

Really that's the main reason that you love the game. We'll have to try that in the office sometimes because it does sound fun. All right, So what's your first factor the day? So how about wartime rules for golf? I am not a golfer, but I found this on lists of note and I love that people were so dedicated to golf that they came up with a list of wartime rules for it. So like they're actually playing during a war. Yeah, it's it's amazing. So here are

a few ways to play during the war. Players are asked to collect bomb and shrapnel splinters to save causing damage to the moing machines, which I guess sounds fine. You should pick them up as you play in competitions. During gunfire or while bombs are falling, players may take cover without penalty for ceasing play. Oh my gosh, how kind of them Let them avoid being bombed or shot, and a player who stroke is affected by the simultaneous explosion of a bomb may play another ball from the

same place penalty one stroke. I like that they have rules for this. I know, just the idea that, like, if a bomb goes off as you play, but you still want to keep playing, you can take your shot over again, but you still a stroke. It makes sense because that just just makes perfect sense. That is banana.

So what's your next fact? All right, Well, I was gonna do something on kickball, but I think I'm gonna save that one for a little bit later because I also found some old golf rules that that you might like. Sur friend Nick Green did a great story on old golf rules that no longer exist, and there were a lot of them on here that I didn't know. Like instead of a t box, the original rule is that you would put your ball one stick length from the

whole and then you'd start the next hole. So once you finished the hole, you just put one stick link and then you'd start right from there, which I am guessing you know, would cause some traffic jams on the golf course of people trying to finish out each hole. Also when you dropped a ball on the course, you were supposed to quote stand erect face the whole, and

then drop the ball over your shoulder. Very specific. I don't really, I guess so I'm not sure why it had to be behind your back, but maybe that's so you didn't get some sort of unfair advantage. But I think my favorite old timey rule that's been changed since you know this is from the Rules of Golf is played by the Society of St. Andrew's Golfers from eighteen twelve. It reads, quote, if the player's ball strikes his adversary

or his caddy, the adversary loses the whole. If it strikes his own caddy, the player loses the hole, Which means you could technically aim for the other player and if you hit him or his caddy, I guess you win the hole, which does add like maybe a little bit of excite you've been to the game, but also kind of sounds awful. But you know that said, the rule does clarify that it has to be with the ball, like if you strike an opposing player with your club,

then you lose the I'm glad they everyone. Yeah, I do feel like if that's how golf was still played. You get a lot more people watching it on TV, for sure. I think the ratings will go through the roof. Okay, so what's your next fact? So this isn't exactly a rule change, but it is a big change to a board game I loved as a kid, which is Clue. So you know, plenty of board games have been altered over the years. Scrabble allows words like yo and za which is short for pizza. Um it really it allows

both those words. Now, Yeah, it's crazy. My grandmom would be incensed. Monopoly got rid of the iron and the thimble. Thimble was actually my favorite piece, but they've replaced it for like a cat and a rubber ducky and I think there's even a penguin in the mix for some reason. But one of the things I only just learned about was that Clue killed off Mrs White, who was the housekeeper slash cook character, and so who they replace her with? So they're play her with Dr Orchid, who's this PhD

in plant toxicology. And initially, you know, when I read this, I was just like stomping about and her rumping about, like why do games have to change? Or whatever, so angry, But then I read orchids backstory and I kind of love it. So apparently she's the adopted daughter of the mentions owner, and she was expelled from a fancy Swiss boarding school after a quote a near fatal daffodil poisoning

insult here, which is already hilarious. And and then she was homeschooled by Mrs White, the woman she suspiciously replaces. She's also Asian, which Slate points out makes her the only recognizable person of color in the game, but Hasbro's statement about it is really the best they wrote. Quote, it was a difficult decision to say goodbye to Mrs White, but after seventy years of suspicious activity, we decided that one of the characters had to go. But it does

seem like a reasonable replacement. Well, here's something I've always wondered as a fan of the show Jeopardy, and that is, why is it that only the winner gets to keep the cash? You know, and Wheel of Fortune or other games shows, if you win some money along the way, you actually do get to keep. But Jeopardy wasn't always this way. So in the original version of the show, this aired way Back in the sixties, the second and

third place would get to keep their winnings. But in nineteen sixties seven there was a contestant who ruined it for everyone. So he appeared on Jeopardy with the sole intent of winning enough money to buy an engagement ring, which seems honest enough. Midway through the game, when he'd amassed enough winnings, he just shut his mouth and stopped playing.

Get it So like, he got to a certain amount of money and knew if that was it, and you know, he thought if he answered any questions wrong, he might lose that money. And so this exposed a real flaw in the system this TV exactly. So when the show returned for primetime, the show runners wanted to make sure that didn't happen again. After all, I mean, like, it could be disastrous if all three players decided halfway through the game to stop and just say, like, okay, we've

won enough money. So they changed the rules so that only the winner would take home the cash, and it turned into a horse race to you know, to Final Jeopardy, which is a great story. But what about the guy, Like, do you know anything more about him? I was reading on a Jeopardy blog, and he actually spent that money in the right place. According to a book written on Jeopardy twenty three years later, when the game show checked in on him, he was actually still married to that woman.

So it is kind of a nice story. I do like that. Well, here's something I didn't realize. Did you know that up until seven not all ice hockey players have to wear helmets when they played? Oh god, it seems a wholeful, I know, and in the nineties, but you know, I'm obviously not a huge hockey fan. I'll get into the Olympics, and you know, I used to play like floor hockey and jim but it's not a

sport I pretend to watch. But you know, it really does seem unimaginable to me that all the way up until ninety seven, you can still play the game without a helmet. But it's for an interesting reason. So apparently, the NHL has mandated headgear since nineteen seventy nine season in particular, but according to The New York Times, players were then allowed to decide for themselves whether they wanted to wear a helmet, although if they didn't, they were

required to sign a waiver. So this one player, Craig McTavish. He was grandfathered in during his rookie season and he played helmetless for sixteen years until the seven season. And at the time he said he was really lucky too and grateful to have left the game without any serious head injuries. So, you know, reporters asked him, why didn't you just wear the thing? And he just shrugged and said it was a comfort thing. Wow, I kind of want to see a brain study on this guy. That

that's pretty well all. Well, here's a quick one for you that you you might have heard before, But there's this old fact that baseball umpires used to call games from padded rocking chairs, which you know kind of sounds a little bit lazy. Yeah, I mean that fact always reminded me of that Seinfeld where George gets a security guard a chair because he wants them to be able to take a load off. But then the debate what type of chairs is comfortable but not too comfortable? You know,

and of course in that case it's disastrous. But back to baseball, So the rocking chair bits seems it suspect and maybe that happened once or twice, but I couldn't really find any credible evidence of it. But what is true is that umpiring was a totally different thing in the early days of baseball. At the time, baseball was

this gentleman's pastime, and umpires were always volunteers. In fact, it was considered an honor to be asked to umpire game, because it meant you were a person of some standing, and you know that you were known for your fairness,

and their clothing kind of showed this. So I found this in the Society for American Baseball Research, but in early woodcuts of baseball games quote, the idealized stereotype of an umpire was a distinguished looking fellow, often attired in a top hat Prince Albert coat and Caine, who stood neeled or sat on a stool a respectable distance from home plate along the first baseline. I kind of wish this was still the case, the top of everything, exactly.

And of course this the game became more competitive, and umpiring felt less like an honor and more like a hassle. These umpires got paid, and they put on these new uniform arms and move them closer into the plate to make better calls and and all of that. But it's it's interesting to read that history. Well, I I do know we've got two more facts to go, So why don't we go to a little break first and then get back to this. Welcome back to parts and genius.

We we're talking rules and changes in sports, all right, Mango, we got one last fact each. What's your last one going to be? So one of the things I'm always fascinated by is how sports often changed their rules based on like one player's dominance. And uh, you think about how like there was no dunking college basketball for number of years because of lou L Cinder, who you know changed his name to Koreem abdul Jabbar and was just

unstoppable in college. And then the same was true for Wilt Chamberlain, who I guess used to lob up his free throws and then jump in the lane and dunk them, which is why players can't cross the plane of the free throw line, you know while shooting. Oh I didn't know that. Yeah, And and there are lots of stories

like that. But do you know that when Darren Sprowles was a tiny kid and played football, his league instituted a rule that he wasn't allowed to run any sweeps because he scored every single time he was handed the ball, and random you were just so dominant in this like peewee league that they banned him from running it and they changed the rules just for him. And he was super fast. I could see that happening. I've not heard that, and and terrifying he was that good at such a

young age. So how are you going to close this one out? All? Right? I think I want to go with a fact about kickball, as I mentioned earlier, So did you know that in the original rules for kickball, and this from the nineteen twenties, was that there was actually no picture. So apparently teams were supposed to have fifteen people on each side and you just placed the ball on home plate and then you just ran up

and kicked it. Also, kids had to stand twenty feet away from you, and if the ball didn't go that far, it was an automatic out, which I guess sounds fine. But the strangest thing about the original rules is that there were only two bases and you didn't have to advance the basis when someone kicked the ball, So I guess technically fourteen kids could be standing on that base when the last kicker was at and then they would all run home at one time, which just sounds bananas.

I know, it sounds like chaos. I am glad they changed the rules, but I also kind of want to see like an old timey kickball league like show up on you know, on playgrounds somewhere or in ESPN three some weekend. So I do think you win the fact off with that fact. All right, Well, thanks so much and thank you guys for listening. We'll be back with a full length episode tomorrow