Rules Are Rules For A Reason

We have seen a lot of the rules getting in the way lately.

A perfect game in baseball is prevented on what could have been the last play of the game because the umpire made a bad call. Baseball stuck by the rule book and did not change what looked like an easy change to make.

The U S Open, the leader of the Open loses his ball. After a five minute search he is receiving instruction from a golf official as to what he had to do to continue play when someone finds his ball. The USGA did not allow him to play the found ball because his search time limit was up, but play a new one. Justin Johnson was never close again in the final round.

Do you remember a decade ago the last play of a Missouri-Colorado football game in which the refs mistakenly gave Colorado an extra play. Colorado scored on the extra down to win the game.

$1.2 million out the door because of a simple rule of not buying a fishing license. This young man from Alexandria Virginia was the culprit in the Big Rock Tournament who fished but did not have a license.

My thoughts are baseball is no worse off today because they did not change a call to give a pitcher a perfect game. The fact is baseball now has a trivia question. The umpire’s admission of missing the call plus the player’s response has really made that one of the great teaching experiences of all time.

There is a golf course with 40,000 people on it and not one of those folks saw that ball land. They must have been following Tiger’s group. My problem was always while looking for my ball I might find ten of somebody else’s balls but never mine. I wonder whether they found one of my balls while they were looking for Johnson’s ball.


That Colorado-Missouri football game Bill McCarthy was the coach at Colorado. When asked it he would forfeit the game in order to makes things right McCarthy said no. McCarthy would later be the founder of religious group Promise Keepers. Doesn’t quite seem right does it.

You can look in the paper just about any day and see people who have had wrecks and are charged with driving without a license, failure to have insurance. This fellow who didn’t have a fishing license in the Big Rock Tournament says he didn’t know he needed to have a license, now I have heard he thought the entire boat was covered by a blanket license. If you have ever been in a civics class in high school there is one basic principle. Not knowing the law is no excuse. Say good bye to your share of $1.2 million.

If we don’t have rules and follow them then there is chaotic life. If you want to see what life is like with out following the rules go to your nearest court house and look at all those folks trying to get out of not following the rules.