Posted ByScissormeister on March 14, 2001 at 16:19:22:
By now you've all probably seen the Rules Committee's list of proposed changes for the 2002 season. I'd be interested in hearing other people's thoughts about this.
Of course the most controversial proposed change is bound to be the one requiring competitors at the tournament level to declare the hand they intend to use before the match. It seems to me that this eliminates a very important psychological factor from a sport that is, after all, all about psychology.
It also has the potential to profoundly affect the careers of certain ambidextrous players who like to keep from revealing the hand they will be playing with until the very first throw. One remembers the example of Billy "Two Hands" O'Leary, who dominated the sport with his facility in changing hands *from throw to throw* back when it was legal to do so; when the rule was changed in 1940, he lost his championship and his career never recovered.
I have no great love for competitors who can switch from right to left so easily--I can't do it myself, of course--but I also don't want to see the spirit of the game get compromised. If we eliminate the human factor from competition, we might as well just use computers to play.
The rest of the proposed changes (moving the referee's semicircle six inches farther back from the field of play, increasing the size of the scoreboard, etc.) are relatively uncontroversial and should go through easily, but I'd be surprised if the hand declaration rule survived a vote of the full committee.