Today let’s talk about unwritten rules in sports. What are those you ask? Really hard to say in most cases. I mean they aren’t written done anywhere so, it’s like a rule mine field. You’ll never you broke one until it’s to bloody late. If you can’t tell, I hate the concept, everything to do with it and purists who live and die by them. This should be a fun little post.

The incident that inspired this rant happened on Sunday in the NFL. The New York Giants were getting ready to run out the clock on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Giants attempted to take a knee to run out said clock. It happens in NFL games all the time. The problem was nobody told the Buccaneers how to behave on the play. They smashed the offensive line trying to get at the quarterback to cause a fumble. As the NFL pointed the play was live people. According to Giants coach Tom Coughlin it was a cheap shot and broke accepted protocol. On top of that it could of gotten someone hurt. Accepted protocol you say? They broke an unwritten rule I have heard others claim. Well I got news for you sad little clowns. If the rule is so bloody critical then you better write it down. Then slap the son of bitch in the rule book. Otherwise you need to just shut the hell up right now.

You heard me you purists pukes I said shut the hell up. God I hate unwritten rules with a passion. Now the NFL game above caused this post, but this phenomenon is all over sports and no place is it worse than baseball. In fact one of my favorites got broken last year. An Oakland A’s pitcher got royally pissed off at a New York Yankee for cutting across the pitchers mound after an inning. I actually got in a fight over this rule once in a high school game. Again an unwritten rule that apparently is important enough to whine about, yet not critical enough to write the hell down. Are you seeing a pattern to my annoyance yet?

None and I mean none of these unwritten rules matter jack all to playing the actual game. If they did they would be in the rule book where even the most simple person could read and understand them. There just little cultural oddities that might of mattered in the early days of the sport in question. Honestly the only reason they even exist today is to give purists a feeling of superiority over the common peasants. According to coaches I had over my youth in baseball. I broke approximately 78 billion of these unwritten rules and I only played through high school. Never gave a crap then and I don’t give a crap now. I will observe and obey the rules set forth in the rulebook. The rest mean zero to me.

Going to back to the media influenced controversy on Sunday. The game is 60 minutes in length, not 59 minutes and 40 seconds. So you better have you big boy pants on for that entire time or else. The amount of cash these players are paid, crying about a team pulling a legal fast one of them is a little pathetic. Just remember if a rule is so damn important to the integrity and image of your sport, write it down. I think I said that enough to get my point across don’t you?

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