The dumbest rule in sports

There's some really dumb rules in sports. Please jump in with your own suggestions if you please, but here's a few that I offer.

In hockey, whacking a guy in the face with a stick, as long as it doesn't draw blood, will result in the same degree of penalty as flipping the puck into the crowd. High sticking and delay of game are both 2 minute minors. That doesn't seem right.

In some car races, yellow caution flags are predetermined before the contest even starts. Maybe that has to do with checking out the track. But if they were worried about that, than they shouldn't be racing on it in the first place. Dumb.

In golf, one will get a 2 stroke penalty for not replacing the ball in exactly the same place on the green after it's been "marked". Yet one will only incur a 1 stroke penalty for hitting the same ball into the middle of a lake or deep into the woods. Evidently, missing by a couple inches is twice as important as missing by 40-50 yards. Dumb.

Tennis has a weird scoring system. Zero is love. 1 is 15. 2 is 30. 3 is 40. Who came up with this nonsense anyway? Dumb.

Across the spectrum of sports, head coaches and managers can be seen in a variety of clothing as they attend games. Everything from suits and ties to hoodies. Some major league baseball managers wear a uniform with a number on the back, and some don't. Jim Leyland, of the Detroit Tigers, appears to prefer wearing his team pajamas while on the field. You'd think the various commissioners of these sports would lay out a dress code for the guys running teams much like they do for the players, but I guess not. Seems dumb.

Yet I would maintain that nowhere is there a dumber rule than in major league baseball.

It has to do with yellow lines. Some major league ball parks have them -- and some don't. I'm referring to the yellow lines sometimes found at the top of outfield walls. If a batted ball goes over the wall in "fair" territory, then it's a home run. Most would think that if the same batted ball hits the wall, then it's up to the outfielder(s) to play it the best they can, while the batter perhaps gets a double, a triple, and in rare cases, if the ball caroms away from the fielders and the batter is speedy enough, maybe even an "inside-the-park" home run. If the ball hits the wall and bounces back, it's in play, right? Not so fast.

For some reason that appears to be known only to God and baseball commissioner Bud Selig, there are yellow lines at the top of some ball park outfield walls. If the ball hits the yellow line and bounces back -- it's a home run. How dumb is that? Granted, every major league baseball park has it's own unique parameters when it comes to the "fences", but c'mon. What's the point in the yellow lines? If they want that ball to be a home run, lower the walls a foot. Or bring the fences in. The Detroit Tigers did just that at Comerica Park in left field. When the stadium was brand new, it took quite a "poke" to hit a homer to left field. What would normally be a "round-tripper" in most other stadiums was just a long out in Detroit. To their credit, the Tigers organization realized the initial design blunder, reconfigured the bullpens, and brought the fence in by over 20 feet. But even the Tigers organization, as bumbling as they can be at times, ever had a "yellow line" on an outfield wall, to my knowledge.

I never noticed it until earlier today, but the dumbest rule of them all has to be at Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox. Most everybody knows that Fenway features the "green monster" wall in left field. It stands a little over 37 feet tall. I suggest anybody reading this to Google "dimensions of Fenway Park", and after looking at an overview, wondering what the architect, James McLaughlin, could possibly have been thinking way back in 1911. The whole lay-out, at least these days, seems kind of dumb, but hey, such places as Fenway, and Wrigley Field in Chicago, forever the home of the Cubs, ivy-covered walls and all, should merit a great deal of respect.

Nevertheless, Fenway Park should get the gold for a dumb rule. They seem to have trumped the yellow lines at the top of walls in other parks. On the very edge of the "green monster" towards "centerfield" is a yellow line. And it's VERTICAL. A ball hit an inch to the left of the yellow line bounces off the same 37 foot wall and is in play. A ball hit an inch to the right of that line will drop into the centerfield stands amongst the fans, where the wall in only maybe 15 feet high. But if the ball hits the magic yellow line -- it's a home run. How incredibly stupid is that?

I don't know, but the above mentioned Jim Leyland somehow saw fit to walk onto the field in his PJ's and challenge a ball hit by one of his players that bounced back, but maybe, just MAYBE, it hit the yellow line, for a home run.

Nevermind the 30,000+ fans in attendance, that paid mega-bucks to be there. Let them twiddle their thumbs, or maybe go buy another $8 draft beer that's probably worth about a quarter. The entire crew of umpires stopped everything, and disappeared through a dugout to their hallowed " men in black" room, where presumably video techs were busy showing all four of these guys several different replays of whether a baseball hit an arbitrary yellow line or not in the field of play.

That goes way beyond dumb.

That's just stupid.