(03-07-2014 01:25 PM)ultraviolet Wrote:  Many years ago in the NFL it got to be a fad for an idiot fan to run out and grab the football and try to run off with it. Usually it was followed by high fives from drunk friends and security escorting them out. Once though, the Baltimore Colts were playing and a fan ran out grabbed the ball and started to run with it. All pro middle linebacker, Mike Curtis, clocked the guy with a forearm to the chin and the guy had to be carried off. Later, when asked why he did it, Curtis replied, 'well he wanted to play football didn't he'?. That fad stopped abruptly.

Watch how the ref catches the ball when Curtis knocks it out of the fan's hands.... lol.

Basketball games used to be played in metal cages. May have to go back to that to keep the fans off the court....and the coaches

Batshit crazy Ron Artest would have chased that jack@ss right back up into the stands and then he would have beat the crap out of that kid and all of that kid's friends.

(03-07-2014 07:03 PM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  Basketball games used to be played in metal cages.

And the players were called "cagers". I wonder when that ended?

Yep, we should go back to this

The media would absolutely eat it up if they brought the cages back.

Could you imagine if we sent someone like Lebron or Kobe back in time to play with those guys?

Que Gaucho!

(03-07-2014 11:29 PM)ncbeta Wrote:  Could you imagine if we sent someone like Lebron or Kobe back in time to play with those guys?

It wouldn't have to be elite-level NBA athletes. Even just "normal" 18-19 yr. old athletes of today (where "normal" means "was good in high school but no Div. I scholarship offers") have advantages in height/weight, training, diet/lifestyle, strength/conditioning, etc. that there would be no competitive balance at all.

I saw an interview -- I think about 10 years ago -- where the heights/weights of the undefeated 1972 Miami Dolphins were compared to "average" sizes of NFL players of "today". The men who went 17-0-0 would have been absolutely slaughtered. And the time-difference in that example was only about 30 years. Magnify it to 100 years, and you realize that you're not even watching the same game. And that's before you factor in the rules-changes that have opened up scoring.

I have watched that Mike Curtis clip 3 times. Think I'll watch it again.

Wow, that is so weird. I never knew that they played in cages. I thought it was because of the chains on the hoop. Thanks for edumacating me.

(03-08-2014 08:24 AM)Native Georgian Wrote:  It wouldn't have to be elite-level NBA athletes. Even just "normal" 18-19 yr. old athletes of today (where "normal" means "was good in high school but no Div. I scholarship offers") have advantages in height/weight, training, diet/lifestyle, strength/conditioning, etc. that there would be no competitive balance at all.

Take a gander at this article from the Sports Illustrated archives:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/a.../index.htm

It may cause you to reconsider your statement. I don't think that too many of today's roundball athletes, NBA or otherwise, would have lasted even 5 minutes in one of the "cager" events described in this article. (Mike Curtis, on the other hand, probably would have thrived.)

I love the fact that the original rule for possession of an out of bounds ball was that who touched the ball first once it went out of bounds.

I am reading the book about John Wooden and it said that sometimes, fights broke out among players trying to get to the ball, especially if it went into the balcony of the gym and all the players took off for the stairwell to get upstairs and get the ball first.

The kids an A$$ whole....