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Originally Posted by Pretentious Dookie
There is a widely-accepted code among coaches and officials that says that lines aren’t gray. In other words, officials have some discretion to pass on certain calls in certain situations, such as the marginal travel in the junior varsity contest, the slight bump on the LeBron dunk, the common rather than intentional foul in the calm blow-out. Lines, on the other hand, are lines. Even a toenail on the three-point arc, if seen, means a two-point try, no exceptions. And the same thing goes for the sidelines, baselines, the free-throw lines, and the division line (the only possible exceptions are lane lines on free throws, but that’s a discussion for another time). Out-of-bounds is out-of-bounds. One corollary of this code is that if a player is bumped, then, despite reasonable efforts to stay in, goes out of bounds, it has to be a foul. With no o.o.b., there need be no foul. And, obviously, if the official does not have a good view of the line in question(or can feign a poor look), a foul need not be called (though it does force the official to explain to the supervisor why he was out of position to referee the sideline), and o.o.b. MUST not be called.
Those who have seen the same regular-definition replays that I have may be screaming by now, “But it’s not clear he was o.o.b, in which case the foul shouldn’t have been called!” To that quite reasonable position I have two responses: first, it is indeed not clear on video replay, but the official, whatever the criticisms, was exactly where he was supposed to be on the play, which is to say he had a perfect angle for judging o.o.b. So it’s tough for me to definitively say he was wrong given our respective looks at the play. The second, and of greater meta-import, is that it wasn’t clear to the commentators either, yet they did exactly zero real work to try to help clear up the question. There was ample time in the minute or so between the final foul and Wallace’s first free throw for any one of them to ask the producer, “Can we get a clear shot of the sideline there?” But none did. Then, when they finally defaulted into that angle, there was no one calling for a freeze-frame (where was Vitale!).
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Tue Feb 12, 2008, 04:28pm
Got no time for writers that feel the need to use several paragraphs to show everybody how much smarter they are than their readers before they get to what they want to say.
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