rone | behold the ugly american

Offsides rule in futbol is like calling a violation if the Lakers don't pass three times before a shot. Artificial and unnecessary.

Not only does it make zero sense, it betrays a fundamental lack of understanding both soccer and basketball, as well as being an archetypal example of that pernicious insistence that the world must adjust itself to his view.

I'm not sure what qualifies as "artificial" in a game that is, perforce, man-made, but as far as weird rules that feel forced, football's "players with numbers in certain ranges may not be downfield to receive a forward pass unless they report to the referee as eligible" rule is pretty high on my list. In baseball, there's the classic infield fly rule. And then there's basketball, with multiple instances of rules created to stop a single player (e.g., George Mikan, Wilt Chamberlain); how's that for "artificial"?