The Act of God Clause, and Waiting for the Ultimate Field Goal

Sometimes I have the opportunity to read a snippet of the official rules of a sport, most often baseball or football. And I'm usually struck by the fact that there's language in the rules that indicates that either there used to be really crazy stuff happening, or they had people sitting around coming up with crazy, awesome stuff that could possibly happen and making it illegal.

For example, in football, regarding field goals:

"The entire ball must pass through the goal. In case wind or other
forces cause it to return through the goal, it must have struck the
ground or some object or person before returning."
Are you serious? I'm going to assume that there was never actually a case of someone kicking a field goal, only to have it completely changed direction due to wind or some "other forces" without being touched and go back through the uprights. If that had happened, the team probably would have shut down its offices and stopped playing games, citing the reason: "What's the point? God hates us."

So since I'm assuming that the most impossible thing imaginable didn't happen, I have to assume that the rules-makers were sitting in a room discussing this.

Guy One: Okay, what's a field goal?
Guy Two: You kick it through the uprights.
Guy One: All the way through?
Guy Two: Of course.
Guy One: The whole ball?
Guy Two: Yes. What's so hard about this?
Guy One: What if it comes back?
Guy Two: Comes back? How could it do that?
Guy One: Well, it could bounce off the ground, or a player could grab it and through it back through the uprights.
Guy Two: Then obviously it's still a field goal. Why would you "miss" a field goal if some twerp just douches it up after the play is over?
Guy One: What if nobody touches it, and it comes back?
Guy Two: How?
Guy One: I don't know, wind?
Guy Two: Wind.
Guy One: Yes.
Guy Two: So you're saying the kicker kicks the ball through the uprights, and after passing completely through, the wind is somehow strong enough to completely turn the ball around, reverse its momentum, and blow it back through the uprights?
Guy One: Exactly.
Guy Two: When has this happened? Where do you live that has wind like that? Footballs weigh a couple pounds and are traveling pretty fast.
Guy One: It doesn't matter, it could happen.
Guy Two: Probably not.
Guy One: It doesn't matter! Put it in! Do as I say!!

At least I'm hoping that's how these weird "act of god clauses" sneak into rulebooks. After all, that would mean I didn't just waste several minutes typing a bunch of random idiocy. (Although I probably did anyhow, regardless of how the rule came into existence.)

Now I have to eagerly watch every field goal from now until time immemorial, hoping to see the ultimate field goal, the only thing that could surpass The Dawson Kick, where the ball passes fully through the uprights and manages to turn around and come back because of wind or "other forces." At that point, the pinnacle of sports will have been reached. It's all downhill from there.

And that's why I need to be watching when it happens.

Posted by Sean Schulte at 2007-11-21 10:54:32

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