The weirdest rules in sports and the absurd stories behind them | Weird Rules Marathon: Volume 1

Seth you're a big basketball fan I am if you had to take like a giant lanky like basketball center and put him on a football field what would you do with it like a seven footer like a yeah guys close to that size have played receiver before can you know run roots and they're taller than everyone they can catch the ball what if you had a really tall like NBA Center you had on your team specifically to like swap balls out of the goal post for a field goals okay so I don't know what position that w

ould be but it's like super free safety trying to play D on the goal post yeah like goaltending basically how tall is a goal post 10 feet then that's a fantastic idea well too bad because there is a rule against specifically that and I'd like to tell you about it please do the rule says goaltending by any player leaping up to deflect a kick as it passes above the crossbar of a goal post is prohibited the referee could award three points for a palpably unfair act palpably palpably unfair word doe

s the ball have to be crossing the you know goal posts if you try to deflect it as it's going across the goal post right like swatting it down with your hands are given the trajectory of a kick how often this even matters I guess some kicks you know hit the very bottom or come pretty close often enough for them to make it illegal and I'll tell you exactly why please in 1969 the Kansas City Chiefs drafted a basketball player from Clark Atlanta University named Morris strap and this guy was huge h

e was 6 10. he was pretty good basketball player with very little actual football skill but Hank stram who was the chief's coach at the time was like I have to have this guy he's so tall the guy was [ __ ] huge yeah so Hank Strom hires this guy and was like I'm gonna have you play tight end and he has a pretty decent career from 1969 to 1974. but he also puts him on special teams and he goes here's what I want you to do for every field goal attempt I want you to just run all the way down the fie

ld I think it's set up in the end zone and then when the ball starts going towards the goal post I want you to try to jump up and just SWAT it out of the air which has to look really stupid right because his field goal is coming even a short field goal is coming from very far away and it's typically going to clear the crossbar by a lot so he's just jumping and waving his arms that's like me trying to play basketball and trying to goaltend right exactly you know we're like catching alley-oop like

it's not gonna happen I don't believe he ever successfully did it which is very funny I would be very surprised to be it ever successfully blocked a field goal from directly in front of the uprights I'd like to see a really short guy do it well then you shimmy up the pole and like sort of squirrel your way across and then reach is there a rule against that uh tons there are tons of rules against that damn yeah you can't do that okay what if instead of that and this could give you a few feet in

front of the goal post you had one player already on the field sit on that guy's shoulders and then he's waving his arms maybe they're weighing ones one giant long Jersey oh hello sir it's just me then [ __ ] sick I don't think there's a rule to do the children in a trench coat move it would be very fun to see it at least once but he tried to do it so often that eventually the commissioner at the time was like no I don't think this should be a thing and so they enacted this Rule and they called

it the Stroud rule informally that's pretty cool to have a rule named after you right and also have it not be a role like something creepy like you're not allowed to I'm not going to say anything but don't go finish I don't know where I was going with that you're not alone but that's a pretty like butts on the field it's like oh that's not a rule there's no rule that says you can't slap butts it is now and it's the Rosenthal rule welcome to weird rules it was one time if you were playing soccer

yeah what would be the most fun way to score a goal I think what would be coolest would be if I could kick the ball off the back of your head and it were to go into the goal yeah so then I get a point and you're embarrassed I'd be very embarrassed yeah I'd be a complete fool there's actually an even cooler way I think that's sort of related and that is if you are the ref you could just do it yourself you could be a ref and also score a goal and it has to count now Ryan I swear to God it's true a

referee's job is to be impartial isn't that usually the case yes but I have a story to tell you okay and it all comes from I have here the laws of the game because in Britain Nicola it's not rules yes the Barrister came out here and he told us what the laws were right for the game exactly yeah law nine says the ball is in play at all other times including when it rebounds off either the referee or an assistant referee when they are on the field of play so you can totally Bank a shot off a refer

ee but I know of a guy who took that one extra step and just did it himself as the referee so it's the year 2000. it's Essex County England and it's like an amateur soccer game against Earl's cone and wimpole two most prettiest sounding places on the face of the planet okay so the score is 18 to one yeah a player Banks a shot off of his head and it comes at the ref who's this guy named Brian Sam and he's like this game sucks it's 18 to 1. let's have a bit of fun eh and he just kicks it in the go

lf scores his own goal did he get the [ __ ] kicked out of him he did not get the [ __ ] kicked out of him what happened instead was he ran up the field celebrating because he thought it was really funny wait so did he score for the team that was winning or the team that was losing the team that was losing in fact the final score was 20 to 2. so he had accounted for half of wimpole's goals at the end of the game yes it's a point for you but do you feel like it's sort of patronizing I think it co

uld be it could be a little bit you could be a little bummed and be like what's always saying yeah what's all this in I'm just chopped liver I guess huh we've got two points on the board now for Mr bloody refill yeah and he thinks it's all in good fun yeah but then the Essex County Football Association suspend him for seven weeks and he goes well I thought we were all just having a bit of fun having a bit of a laugh so he quits he goes you can't fire me I quit he has this great justification for

it afterward he said it shows refereeing can be enjoyable and that we are not Hitlers running around blowing whistles all the time do you think that if he hadn't gotten suspended he would have just kept doing it yeah it would definitely would have become his whole thing yeah oh here comes that scoring ref again I'm envisioning a future and I know FIFA is doing doing terrific but for a future where things at FIFA are so rough that they start pulling stunts like bringing this guy in sure could th

e referees form their own team because I think that is what I would like yes for Brian Seville is just to have a team of referees that just shows up with games that's perfect I would love to see that I think you should get in touch with Brian Savile get him out of retirement and create the first team of goal scoring All-Stars all ref All-Stars I like that a lot what do you think is the most dick move that you could do in a baseball game well are you familiar with Morgana The Kissing Bandit no ok

ay well she was uh famous for storming the field many times and going up to players and hugging and kissing them she did this for a period of many years it was non-consensual they didn't want to be kissed they wanted to play baseball sure that makes sense they wanted to believe it nobody wants to play Nobody actually wants to play baseball you know what they're all forced contract really to do it one time I want to see one of the players Escape because you would never play baseball of your own v

olition you want to see yeah having to escape a baseball game would be pretty impressive oh yeah I have something that I think is an even more dick move essentially you could stand in the Batters line of sight and just [ __ ] with them and it wasn't until a massive douchebag came along in 1950 and did exactly that that they were like oh we should probably write a rule to keep people from doing this okay can you can we do this on the show where you tell me about it I would love to rule 604 sectio

n c no Fielder shall take a position in the batter's line of vision and with deliberate unsportsmanlike intent act in a manner to distract the batter they had to write that rule they actually had to write that rule would you like to hear the story of why yes I'd love to tell you it begins August 9th 1950. the New York Giants are playing what were then the Boston Braves Braves third baseman Bob Elliott is at the plate and he's having a hard time picking up the ball as it comes at him because the

second base umpires in his line of sight so he's like hey buddy can you shift sure get out of my way a little bit so I can see what I'm doing and the Empire says that's a reasonable request sure I'll do it and he takes a few steps to the side but New York Giants second baseman Eddie the brat stanky who I have checked is in the top five greatest baseball names he goes Bing he gets like the little light bulb he goes I'm gonna do that I'm Gonna Stand where the empire was and I'm gonna distract him

so that's what he does he walks over and he starts waving his arms around on the very next pitch the Braves are reasonable people and they say okay you know what that's fine they go on to win the game anyway and they make not a big stink about it two days later Eddie stanky is like I'm going to continue to stank this up a little bit and I'm going to keep doing it because I think it's fun and obviously it bothers people he's gonna stank this up figuratively figuratively and quite possibly literal

ly sure the Giants are playing the Philadelphia Phillies and now this has evolved into full-on jumping jacks he gets in the batter's line of sight behind the second base and he just does full-on jumping jacks during almost every pitch and Philly's pitcher Andy semenick is not having it at all he gets very upset and he goes to the Empire and he says I don't think he should be able to do this and the Umpire does what is officially known as calling an Air Bud and says well there ain't no rule that

says you can't do it after the game they're like well we probably should have a rule for it so they try to find National League President Ford Frick do you think if he were born in our time he would be called Ford [ __ ] I think it's possible so the next day they're playing the Phillies again and eventually the umpires say you know what we don't have an official rule for this but we're going to eject you anyway but at that point the damage is done because Andy semenick the guy from the game they

played the day before is still so fired up that he actually slides into the replacement second baseman whose name is Bill rigney and takes him out and Sparks a brawl that requires the intervention of the NYPD to actually take care of yes then they came up with the rule which is now rule 604 that you can't just stand in a batter's line of sight and fight with them that is remarkable this is also the reason why that they have that section in the uh Outfield of most ballparks that is Painted Black

and you can't sit in so that you can't [ __ ] with the batter if I'm not wrong that's called the batter's eye right I believe that's correct yeah well no wonder baton's so bad your eyes all the way out there I assume having a 95 mile an hour baseball hurled at you is an extremely difficult thing to hit in a normal circumstance let alone with people like holding up giant pictures of your face you John you John Voice's face yeah that's the last thing you see before you get one between the eyes wh

at if you get beat by a ball the last thing you see is burned into your brain so that's what happens when you die is you relive the last 10 seconds you saw on television forever for some of you it might be this YouTube video for some people what should we do in case that is true welcome to Eternity hello everybody hope you enjoy it it's going to get cut off as right after you say enjoy and then it's going to start over welcome to Eternity hello everybody hope you enjoy it welcome to Eternity hel

lo everybody hope you enjoy it welcome to Eternity hello everybody if you ever play sports or games with that kid who would always find like annoying loopholes in rules and make the game like basically unplayable yeah yeah absolutely and I can remember a child uh calling me for traveling playing pickup basketball as like a fourth grader yeah which come on we're all traveling come out what if I told you that one of those kids grew up and actually changed hockey because of the [ __ ] that he was p

ulling during games there's not one but three rules at least that exist because of his tomfoolery would you like to hear about it yes I would great his name was Roger Nielsen he was really good at finding weird little nooks and crannies that he could take advantage of and bring the game in some cases to a complete screeching halt Roger realized that despite how many penalties a team took you could still not have less than three players on the ice towards the end of games to protect a lead he wou

ld keep intentionally putting too many men on the ice so the referees had to keep resetting the game and then he would just do that every 10 seconds until time ran out so the opponent could had no opportunity to score that is a bad loophole isn't it to make a rule that actually sets a limit on the referees themselves saying you can't penalize someone further than down to three people that was right for exploitation I I think Roger is in the right because of this they had to create this rule sect

ion 9 rule 74.4 it's really wordy I'm not going to read the whole thing but it's basically just about deliberate illegal substitution I feel like they should put credit on those that tip too small text yeah here's the [ __ ] who made us do this yeah that would be great if a rule book had under each rule like and here's why the next season they were like hey you can't do that if you intentionally put too many men on the ice the other team just gets a penalty shot and he was like well I've got som

ething for penalty shots too the rules back then never specified that you have to have a goaltender in the goal for a penalty shot yeah so what he would do is just substitute in a defenseman for the goaltender and there was also no rule that said the goaltender had to stay in the goal so these guys on the other team would line up for a penalty shot and then the defenseman would just charge them as fast as possible and they usually had longer sticks too because of their position so they would ste

al the puck away from the guys before they could get the penalty shot off because of that they made a whole lot I mean this is the whole rule right here section four rule 24.2 penalty shot procedure there's a whole thing but right in the middle it says only a player designated as a goalkeeper or alternate goalkeeper May defend against the penalty shot and the goalkeeper must remain in his crease until the player taking the penalty shot has touched the puck so it's got to be a goalkeeper and he's

got to stay put because of Roger Nielsen he it's a very like Mighty Ducks move I think to just like put another guy in and have him just charge I just picture like Keenan Thompson just charging in someone on the ice isn't that supposed to this dude saved hockey right hockey had some [ __ ] rules in a way he kind of Saved hockey by being the villain someone had to push Aki to its limit this is like the shot clock in basketball there didn't used to be a shot clock and so some [ __ ] were like wai

t I have a two-point lead I can just hold the ball for the next half hour yeah I'm like all right fine we need a shot clock but without that guy they might have never figured it out what I would really like is to see what practice was like do you think that coach was actually instilling any skills or strategies in his players and teams or was he just thinking about how to game the system were they like coach I haven't learned how to shoot a slap shot yet and he's like okay but if we had someone

hanging upside down that he's technically not on the ice but he can still like and they're like coach please he was actually great at both of those things not only he's also a good coach he was also a very good coach he was the first coach who was like hey we should like practice in the off season the hockey teams were not practicing during the offseason they would just hang out and drink beer and he was like this is uh extra time we could use to work on our game he's known for really these thre

e rules the third one is he you can of course pull your goalie to add an extra skater onto the ice he would tell his goalie hey when you come off the ice leave your stick across the goal on the ice just like lay it down and block the goal and again no rule that says you can't because of that they added to section 9 rule 67.5 awarded goal when a goalkeeper is pulled for an extra attacker he can't leave his stick equipment pile of snow or other obstacles in front of the net or a goal will be award

ed if a puck going towards the neck is affected by it and I wonder if they had to put in the whole list at once or if they had to keep adding these things every time Raj would get out there with his little tricks and tips right like you can't put your stick down and he's like well you didn't say anything about a snowman okay a no Snowman no snowman fine yeah it's almost kind of funny if you read the rule and then you add his name at the end of it Roger when a goalkeeper is pulled for an extra at

tacker he may not leave his stick equipment pile of snow or other obstacles in front of the net Roger have they named like a trophy after him he's in the NHL Hall of Fame uh as a in the Builder category for like Innovation to the game it's cool because he's more of Builder I get what that means he's almost like an auditor like someone else built the thing and then he came over and kicked down a wall and was like right this isn't going to work he's like a hacker yeah like companies hired to find

vulnerabilities it's a uh Catch Me If You Can thing where they're like he's the con artist that they were like come in and just fix our league instead of exploiting all the rules yeah he strikes me as a very Leonardo DiCaprio type in my head yeah I was gonna say that also yeah before we even started talking yeah how bad would things need to be for you in a basketball game to want to goaltend a free throw on purpose I mean like just general pettiness for the person shooting the free throw at the

you know just like you know spite is my favorite motivator sure yeah it's a good one for a lot of people this scenario actually came up for Billy Gillespie when he was coaching the Kentucky men's basketball team in 2008. you cannot tell me a lot that would surprise me about Billy Clyde's tenure in Kentucky because it was Rife with Joys and wonderful anecdotes but one word here's the scenario Kentucky is playing Georgia in the SEC tournament okay Georgia is up one it's the end of the game there's

1.2 seconds left George is at the free throw line how many shots they get two okay so they sync the first one now they're up two yeah so what does Georgia do with that second free throw bang it hard off the glass yeah throw it away and burn off the rest of the time on the clock right for sure Billy Gillespie knows this so he says Hey goal tend the free throw on purpose they don't automatically score it like they do a regular box they do automatically score it but what happens is they get a tech

nical foul because of this rule in the NCAA Men's Basketball rule book rule 9 Article 15 section three it says when the violation is at the basket of the opponent of the offending player the offended team shall be awarded one point and a Class B technical foul for goaltending during a free throw did Kentucky have any timeouts left no timeouts oh see that's why okay gotcha so he's thinking we draw the technical right yes they have to then take two more free throws but if they miss those right we'

ll inbound with the full 1.2 seconds and hopefully plenty of time to sync a three and tie that yeah it's one thing to know the rule and to make the decision that yes we're going to try it this time right but did he like send somebody in specifically because like that's the specialist right yeah this is the guy who knows what I want right if not do you just have like a signal to them right you just like yelling like hey Goten yeah hey the same the signal is this right or is it like much sneakier

yeah baseball signals sure yeah well the bad news is it didn't work it didn't work because they draw the technical yeah so Georgia gets two more free throws and they make one of them so now they're up by four and the idea was that hopefully they missed those Kentucky gets the ball back right they just inbound with a 1.2 seconds and hopefully like tied up with a three-pointer yeah that doesn't happen what was that press conference like for Billy clad at the end of his Kentucky 10 years exactly to

have to answer reporters questions about that uh Travis and mockery yeah so what exactly was going through your head look uh being a coach it's a stressful thing I'm also a used car salesman so there's that yeah exactly at least he went out on his own turn going out on your own terms just like Billy G and that's all that matters I like that he was his own in yeah professional golfers they don't have the luxuries that you have of dressing like a slob to go to the course right okay you have to th

ey have to dress up they have to meet those expectations there is a professional golfer who came up with sort of an in-between but it got him into a lot of trouble because of a very obscure Rule and I'm going to take you through that right what happened so this guy Craig The Walrus Stadler he's a professional golfer it's 1987 he's playing in the San Diego open he hits his ball sort of under this evergreen tree on the 14th hole and the Evergreen foliage is like comes down to the ground so it's ha

rd for him to like stand up and take a shot right he's got to get on his knees to do that and he doesn't want to get his pants dirty because he's a professional golfer he's a stylish dude so he takes a towel and he rolls it up and he kneels on the towel so his pants don't get like wet and muddy on his knees and he takes a shot that seems like a reasonable thing to do dude it seems reasonable doesn't it but by doing that he violated a very specific rule in in the USGA rule book which I just happe

ned to have a copy of in its entirety right here that thing's not short and it is not forgiving by any stretch of the imagination if we go to rule 13 3 it says a player is entitled to place his feet firmly in taking his stance but he must not build a stance build a stance he can't build a stance like what I'm thinking of is the ball is like at a place high in the tree sure yeah you know play it where it lies right stacking up some chairs or basically just building a treehouse right just climb up

right exactly just like build a ladder on the tree building a stance is putting anything down to help you position yourself to make the shot easier it turns out for a very long time in golf history you could call in from home and report a rules violation that you saw on television just your random Joe Schmo just some random dudes sitting around in his underwear so someone calls in and says hey Craig Stadler should not have put that towel down because that is him building a stance and they had t

o be like that's a penalty we're going to penalize you with stroke now another insane rule you have to report your own scorecard in golf you have to sign it and you hand it in he not knowing that he violated a rule handed in the scorecard without the penalty because he didn't think he did anything wrong right why would he do that exactly they disqualified him from the tournament all together oh no he was in second place and he lost out on thirty seven thousand dollars of prize money because some

idiot called in and knocked on him for putting a towel down and he didn't report it can you believe that oh who was the guy that called in no one else I'd like to think that he has a rivalry with Sadler he gave him a swirly in high school and he was like now's my chance shouldn't your caddy be on top of this more than at like anyone that's a great you know what I mean his Craig stadler's caddy right what if it was Craig stadler's caddy the game gave him the towel what would this rule look like

in other sports that's such an amazing question I can only picture it in something like baseball excuse me sir ump man that was a strike that was a strike I saw it on the box they put on the screen so my dude all I'm saying is if you are violating rules at work even if they're small self-report you got to self-report them can I just self-report them to you you can self-reported me yeah yeah okay cool right now what we're doing this I mean yeah sure uh all right I gotta go to the bathroom really

quick first okay yeah yeah go take care of that okay and I'll be waiting for you here right and we'll self-report and we'll self-report all of the violations that you perfect Holly violations page one of page one it's time for weird rules this is my camera you're going to fake it towards an it's your camera but you're gonna fake it towards me we bounced it off of him right okay you're a Dez Bryant fan right yeah yeah yeah yeah so you know a thing or two about the catch rule yeah like the NFL Maj

or League Baseball also has its fair share of catch rules it makes sense you have a position called catcher yeah it being a big part of the game there's quite a bit of clarity to it but there was a game where the refs just totally whiffed on this catch rule a catch is the act of a Fielder getting in Secure possession in his hand or glove of a ball in flight and firmly holding it providing he does not use his cap protector pocket or any other part of his uniform in getting possession seems relati

vely simple right sure there was a game where the Phillies are playing the Dodgers and Austin Barnes hits a line drive right to the pitcher Nick pavetta who didn't try but somehow like caught the ball in his uniform like it went between the two buttons of his uniform yeah and he just kind of looks down and he's like oh well I I guess I got it and it's the last out of the inning so everyone including the umpires Trot off the field but it turns out that that was technically not a catch and they sh

ould have continued the play because the second part of this rule is providing he does not use his cap protector pocket or any other part of his uniform in getting possession that because that's just like physics happened and he David blamed it and then it was inside it was just in his belly if there had been intent like if he had done it intentionally there's actually another rule for that okay which is rule 7.05 that says all Runners including the batter Advanced three bases if a Fielder inten

tionally touches a fair batted ball with their cap mask or any other part of their uniform so if he had like opened up his uniform like a big met and like caught it everyone advances three bases baseball were they just like scared that somebody was going to want a Harlem Globetrotter baseball and they're like that's too much fun I like to think that the guys that made the original rulebook were just all not creative people how so they were just like what are some of those things they might do th

at would just spoil the game I don't know maybe if they use something other than their glove oh oh terrible no no what if a man removed his shoe somebody in the background's like oh that's good that's going that's going that's going in no shoes at balls you're out there with like some equipment that is easily removable right the temptation to like throw your hat and your glove at things in motion is temp is very tempting it's a three base penalty if it's a hit ball if it's a throne ball so like

first baseman the second baseman and you throw your glove and knock it down then it's only two bases which really does not make a whole lot of sense because that is your own teammate that's making that play it's like if the shortstop forgets he's playing baseball and gets spooked he's like oh what I'm sorry guys I thought it was a hawk again maybe okay so yeah the runners running from first to second you're in the Outfield you see that the ball is passing in between you and where the runner is a

t that moment so you throw to hit the ball to make the ball hit the runner on his way in between bases right that could work I mean yeah if this is that from Angelina Jolie pistol bullet curving movie I'll use my glove change the trajectory of The Baseballs when did this do you know when this came into the rule book I don't huh well Des caught it so there's that if there's one thing we take away from this video it's that Des caught that ball and I agree hey sorry I'm will yeah hi Ryan good to me

et you yeah thanks a lot if you were the NHL I want to know how you would handle this scenario it's 15 minutes to the first puck drop and two of your three officials are complete no-shows they just don't show up I would hold a contest before you would hold yep I would hold a fan contest and I'd come over the loudspeaker and be like hello um yeah that's where we are yeah we're in Milwaukee I have a team and I'd be like we need fans who really know this game and know how to skate sure it's brillia

nt it's really fun you're not too far off from what actually happened because this actually happened this happened once in NHL history it's January 15th 1983. the Hartford Whalers they're hosting the New Jersey Devils and this huge snowstorm happens this big blizzard in the Northeast and two of the officials who are supposed to show up to this game just cannot make it and the one linesman so you get two linesmen and one referee back then one of the linesmen is like screw it I'm gonna do it I wil

l ref this game but the NHL has a rule in the rule book for specifically the scenario have with me the NHL rule book which has the rule in it and I really think you're gonna love this so he turns to the rule book unable to continue rule 31 section 11. if through misadventure or sickness the referees and linesmen appointed are prevented from appearing the league will make every attempt to find suitable replacement officials otherwise the managers or coaches of the two clubs shall agree on referee

s and linesmen you know what I bet that came from I bet they had refs who would get so like messed up before game who would be like at a bar before and then they're like I can have won in skate and then they have like six they get destroyed get like totally wasted well you know Gary you know Gary's not gonna show there's so many Gary's there's a Gary in this story is there really I swear to God big hockey name you can pretty much just pick whoever you want so you can be like you in the third row

put the nachos down right so it's actually pretty much exactly what I said it's almost exactly what you said you wanted to make it a contest but you never specified what the actual contest would would be so I don't know what the contest would be but I know that they'd know how to skate well they didn't do that in Hartford they went to each coach of each team and they decided to pick a player who was not going to play that day oh that's so smart yes you already know how to play they're well only

one of them's name is Gary and that was Gary howitz I can't believe there's actually a game there's a real Gary in the story Gary how it was a forward for the Devils who had injured his knee lace him up Gary you're going to be one linesman and then they went to Mickey Vulcan on the Whalers who was a defenseman they literally had them throw on practice sweats and black jerseys that they had lying around inside the arena which by the way is mostly empty less than 5 000 people showed up it was lik

e 4 800 something actually showed up to the game so they still have to play a game that makes sense and the rule books says if there are people around hockey can do it hockey never sleeps it'll happen so how'd it go so this guy Mickey Vulcan was like took it very seriously and at one point he actually kicked out someone on the Whalers from the circle and a Face-Off because he was trying to cheat he was like ah dude not on my watch not happening he took it like really seriously it's really endear

ing yeah he's moving I'm very moved by that yeah they only had to do one period before the real refs managed to make it through the snowstorm and showed up oh so they did at which point yeah they showed up and according to the rules once the real ref show up you have to abdicate the throne and let them of refton knowing that this rule exists would you have any interest in being an NHL ref yeah if if Duty called would you do it oh my God I would answer in like two seconds for sure okay I'm gonna

give you the rule book I should study it you should study up in case it happens you should start going to more games although I am concerned that I'm gonna read a news report that like a van full of NHL officials met some awful fate because they had their brake lines cut or something Ryan when you have a dream you do whatever it takes to achieve it coming to you live from the SB Nation studios in New York City is weird rules where's those thieves theme music okay enough Holly you play basketball

right I do how are you at free throws uh uh inconsistent I appreciate your honesty yeah what do you do to get ready when you're about to like uncork one oh yeah uncork one that's that's what they say that's all I say dribble at once maybe spin it in my hand and then just go for it because you start to get in your own head sure opinion yeah so you don't take that long couple seconds baby yeah what if I told you there's actually a time limit in the NBA for taking a free throw did you know that I

did not know you've got exactly 10 seconds to take a free throw doesn't that long especially for guys that have you think it's crazy routines I just want you to feel what 10 seconds feels like okay that was 10 seconds that's a long ass time right okay yeah that seems like an excessive amount for it's too much yeah that's why there's a rule in the official NBA rule book and I'd like to read it for you right now it's pretty simple it's right there at the top rule nine section 1A the shooter shall

attempt the free throw within 10 seconds of controlling the ball has this ever become an issue it has become an issue for one person in particular and that is one Dwight Howard as a matter of fact yeah Dwight my nude he actually got suspended for a game sort of indirectly because of this rule what yes in the 2010-2011 season there was a string of three games where he was like Pretty doing it pretty egregiously on Christmas day he was playing the Celtics and it got so bad that Paul Pierce started

silently counting on his hands to like make sure he was doing it because everyone's sitting there like hello can you like can we play he's probably in his head so much that he's he's I mean he's Superman right that's his that's his nickname right probably just like you got this dude Superman you got this do you think maybe he just gets distracted as like that would be cool to fly oh yeah oh yeah yeah definitely man it would be so cool to have bullets bounce off of me and the irony is that free

throws are his Kryptonite there is Kryptonite he's very bad at them later that season in April they're playing the uh the Milwaukee Bucks and Scott Skiles is starting to count seconds out loud to [ __ ] with him like he's just standing there on the side like one two three he was a coach at that point yeah the Bucks coach yeah real professional Scott the next day uh they're playing in Charlotte on April 6th and he gets nailed for it again this is the third time in the season that he's gotten like

actually called for this thing so he's like kind of pissed off and he rolls the ball towards the Baseline away from the refs and they're like nah son you can't do that so they call it Technical and it's his 18th technical of the season so he actually got suspended automatically for one game the next game for being for being upset about this rule for being upset about getting called for the 10 seconds when do you think this rule was implemented because yeah it can't have been around forever righ

t I don't know I don't think so but I don't know when they implemented it but I'm very curious what happened what's that what the reasoning for this rule was yeah originally yeah what's that uh uh like form of it's not obvious it's not yoga but it's like Tai Chi some dude was just like have them yeah exactly just Center Zen and eventually they were like no we've got a too much time too much the lesson here I think is don't think about [ __ ] up so much just do it even just think about it just do

it we should you know what whoa that sounds rude that's got a guy's ring to it we should copyright that yeah just do it just do it period feels good yeah I feel good about that that was good thanks man yeah can you imagine a way that if you were the best cyclist in the world you could crash in a way that was like advantageous to you maybe if you crashed into your opponent and then all of their like steroid needles fell out of their their suit and then they all got disqualified and then you got

to like get back on your bike and finish the race so you crash into someone and they get hit and they explode out of them like rings and Sonic basically what happened to the Russians like Mario coins they just like explode all over the place more or less yeah okay it turns out there's actually a rule as long as you can sell it you can crash on purpose and get a restart and I didn't realize that was an option it is an option so in international cycling there's this rule that says well I'll just r

ead it for you because I happen to have the rules from the union cyclist International wow that was a great French accent thanks do you speak French that means a little I know what it means the rule is regarding mishaps it actually says the word mishaps in bold which is kind of fun it says in the first half lap in the event of a mishap the race is stopped and restarted immediately so what you could potentially do is tank on purpose and go down if you feel like you got a bad start that doesn't se

em fair to everyone else well I hate to break it to you but in the London 2012 Olympics a dude did it and got away with it on purpose on purpose and admitted it his name was Philip Hines he's on the British cycling team in the London 2012 Olympics in the like indoor cycling team Sprint the signal happens and he leaves and within the first two or three seconds he kind of wobbles and he goes down and they have to restart the race because of this rule they later go on to win the gold and then after

he's being interviewed and he says this we were saying if we have a bad start we need to crash to get a restart I just crashed I did it on purpose to get a restart just to have the fastest ride I did it so it was all planned really and he still won he still won honestly that's kind of messed up first of all how do you purposely crash without breaking yourself or your bike in you like are still able to race again right after that's the risk that you have to take that is not very like you can't g

racefully crash a bike going super fast I'm very curious about what was like going through this guy's head going into this race because he obviously admitted to like I'm gonna do it so the race starts you get like maybe not a great start but you get like a split second to be like okay job to crash like that's crazy to me right you have to do it in that first half lap you really have to be like okay here we go no I'm crashing oh there's like someone with this fast of like decision making skills s

hould be using them on something other than cycling and there's no penalty he got no penalty for just being like yeah I did it so he says this but then later they have to come back and be like Oh his comments were lost in translation because I guess he's not like a native English speaker but again he literally says I did it on purpose it was all planned really uh I think he did it would you classify this as cheating oh I mean it's kind of like the NFL catch rule like here we go the rule is what'

s kind of messed up about it to begin with it's the Rule's fault I'm very curious about the lengths that this guy would go to win something else seems like he would be willing to kill would you kill someone for an Olympic gold the person's bad maybe how do you know that going into it like if it's Hitler so if you were if you were in an olympic race with Hitler you'd kill him I would I would 100 do that yeah I feel pretty confident that I would do that too that's a pretty low bar to be honest wit

h you killing Hitler first of all you get to kill Hitler and then on top of it you bring home the gold medal we win like two things yes yeah you are winning life for sure oh yeah yeah totally worth it [Music] hey look at you you made it all the way to the end of the weird rules Marathon good for you reward Yourself by watching secret base videos here and don't forget to subscribe for even more [Music]