Gretzky Has the Ball: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

'''Peter''': Wrong sport.|''[[FoxTrot]]''}}

 

 

 

 

 

The trope name doesn't actually come from any examples; it's just a great example of a person afflicted with this trope. (For those not in on it: Wayne Gretzky is basically the most famous ice hockey player ever to live... and ice hockey uses a puck, not a ball.)

 

{{examples}}

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* Okay, so it's a [[Shonen]] series and thus we can expect liberties with ''everything'', but the portrayal of American football in ''[[Eyeshield 21]]'' is at times just plain wrong. No, you can't [[Unnecessary Roughness|grab a blocker's jersey and fling them to the ground; neither can you punch another player, whether it's to block them or to tackle them]]. Despite [[Hand Wave|handwaving]] with comments like "American football is a violent sport", the referees should be showing up more than ''twice'' in the entire series. Still, it gets the basic rules right, which is more can be said for most examples on this page.

* In the American [[Gag Dub]] of ''[[Digimon Adventure]]'', Tai Kamiya is a soccer player who apparently doesn't play much else. He was rather prone to mixed sporting metaphors, such as "Bases loaded, two outs! And we need a slam dunk!"

* ''[[Code Geass]]'' and chess. One game had the white player put ''his own king'' in check. Meaning, of course, this guy who claims he's never lost a game of chess to Lelouch doesn't know how to play. And Lelouch doesn't even call him on it. (Granted, he was doing it intentionally just to be an ass, but it forced everyone in the room to forget the entire game just so he could one-up Lelouch.)

*** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5G7kWwH9sw Behold the game, in all its stupidity.]

* ''[[Captain Tsubasa]]'' has a variation: while most of soccer/football's rules are respected, the players make impossible moves, and use strategies that are pathetic for anyone that understands the sport, all in name of the plot. The matches depicted on the show also have muuuuch more goals than real life's scores.

** But then it comes an episode (in the Road to 2002 series) where the main focus is a referee that was, apparently, being unfair. The episode then takes a while to talk about referee's methods and other stuff... but then you stop to think about it - this is an anime that ''never gives a damn thing'' about referees. Characters are constantly getting ''severely'' injured in the middle of matches, sometimes in the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqn4R2R9u-U&feature=related most blatant ways], and nobody lifts a finger. All for the sake of awesome, sure, but sends the anime squarely into this trope.

** There are more [[TV Tropes Drinking Game|egregious]] examples. Sometimes players violently attack players of the opposite team without receiving any kind of punishment or only receiving a yellow-card. Have in mind we are not talking about faking a miscalculation and hitting your opponents on purpose ([[Truth in Television|which happens in real life]]) but actually kicking them without holding back, sometimes even after being shouted by your coach/team captain/team partners to "break his leg". This in real life not only would get a red card, but it'd get you kicked from Soccer League, and probably get your team punished as well.

** Crunchyroll's subtitles also demonstrated that the translators apparently didn't know how to play Mahjong, at least not the Riichi variant used in the series. The translation notes in the first episode alone had:

*** An incorrect definition of ''yaku'' as "special hands that are worth 1 fan [sic] (point doubling) each". Correct definition: ''Yaku'' are hand patterns each worth 1 or more '''h'''an (''fan'' is the Chinese term used in other variants).

*** "The player sitting east gets double points and pays double points." The East seat player actually gets 1.5x the points if they win the hand, and pays double if and only if someone else wins via ''tsumo'' (drawing the final tile themselves, as opposed to taking someone else's discard).

*** For some crazy reason, the subtitles had mixed not only romanized Japanese and English translations for Mahjong terms, but some terms were ''translated into their Chinese word origins and then romanized''. Sometimes all in the same line, for example "all simples pinfu mixed triple chow."

* Mio in ''[[Nichijou]]'' is completely incapable of anything ''else''. A montage shows that every time she ever tries to play an organized sport or just a game with rules, she'll do something completely contrary to the rules of the game. When trying to perform a simple high jump, she keeps jumping under the bar, into the bar, or into her best friend.

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

** In one issue, the Riverdale team shows up to a football game, and the rival team is female. One [[Curb Stomp Battle]] later, Archie and Reggie are moping around, depressed, when Betty and Veronica ask to be shown how to "shoot baskets with this horse hide"[a football]. Reggie and Archie walk off with the girls in hand, going "[[Completely Missing the Point|When will you learn football is a man's game]]!" The girls wink at each other.

** In another issue where Betty becomes a race car driver, the flag bearer at the racetrack waves a checkered flag at the start of her first race. The checkered flag is supposed to signal the end of a race.

 

 

== [[Film]] ==

** Of course, there were a few more liberties. First, when Henry throws the ball all the way back to home plate after the visitor hits a homer, everyone acts as if it's a live ball (it isn't). Second, it's unlikely that Little League Baseball would allow a now-professional player back into their league, even if he still meets the age requirement. Weirdly, however, Henry's last pitch, an underhand "floater", is permitted in Major League Baseball (although underhanders are rare, and sidearmers and submarine pitchers are uncommon, since a pitcher can get more velocity throwing overhand.)

*** The other plays he uses in the 9th are illegal; the pitcher can't be on the pitching rubber during a hidden-ball trick attempt (and play is not resumed from a timeout until the pitcher is on the rubber with the ball) and Henry's [[Nobody Calls Me Chicken]] gambit with the runner would not have taken place, as the ump would have called for time as soon as he left the pitching rubber.

** And made even more baffling by the fact that [[The Waterboy|a different Adam Sandler movie]] got that part ''right.''

* Golf movie climaxes almost always involve the "golden rule of golf": [[Bizarre and Improbable Golf Game|Play the ball as it lies]]. This is customarily presented as an immutable law of physics, even when such a play would make a golfer's body contort in ways that would make a member of [[Cirque Du Soleil]] scream in pain. Apparently, the writers have never heard of the "unplayable-lie" rule, which, in real life, can be taken for any shot, even one safely in the fairway. It does carry with it a penalty stroke, and you can't use it to get yourself closer to the hole, but you can do it.

** Actually, the point in that scene is that he's told he ''can't'' use a drop, so instead he's advised to simply two-putt around the tower for the tie.

*** However, ''another'' rule that might have been of use is the "loose impediments" rule, which the fallen tower most likely was...which means it could've been removed without penalty. A famous example of this rule in action is a 1999 golf tournament. Tiger Woods put his shot behind a rather large boulder. Golf officials ruled the boulder a loose impediment because the boulder was not anchored to the ground and was not in the same hazard the ball was...which means a player ''and any spectators'' could move the boulder out of Tiger's line to the green...which a dozen of them did. No doubt a few of the more burly followers of Happy Gilmore would be only too...happy...to move the tower out of his way for him...

** Actually, this happens fairly often in big boxing matches, especially in pre-mid 90s matches, and they often DON'T get disqualified, especially if, like the Rocky movies, it is both boxers throwing some late punches. (The ref is not about to stop the fight early for this with millions of PPV buys at stake for future matches.)

** This concept was parodied in ''[[Scary Movie]] 4'' during the ''Million Dollar Baby'' segment: one of the contenders bites the ref's ear off Mike Tyson style and only "got a point taken off." Tyson lost ''two points'' for the bite and was disqualified when he did it again.

** As far as ''[[Million Dollar Baby]]'' goes, the most prominent example ended Maggie's career, so it really doesn't matter what the official record showed ?- although chances are, having to forfeit the match would be the ''least'' of the other boxer's concerns.

* ''Days Of Thunder'' and ''[[Driven]]'' were extremely inaccurate depictions of NASCAR and CART racing. It's doubly bad, since the film crews spent months following the real series around while filming. You'd have thought they could have done some research, or at least omitted the scene of the main characters having an impromptu grudge match in their race cars through the evening Chicago rush hour; Not only would the average race driver be fired for such a reckless stunt but they certainly wouldn't be able to use their regular car. Most single seat race cars need a team of mechanics to operate the computer systems, heat the tires, start the car with an external starter, and to strap the driver's belts since he/she cannot do that themselves. Or realizing that a NASCAR team needs more than one car. This is not just a question of repairing damage but of suitability. A NASCAR road course car is vastly different to the standard speedway car and a restrictor plate track car. A team keeps several of each for the year. Or that even Tom Cruise couldn't pass everybody else in the race in the last three laps at Daytona. Unless he's an [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|AI driver]].

** A more [[Egregious]] error was during the Darlington race earlier in the movie - the driver would have lost a lot more than just two positions with the extra time he spent on pit road.

** Also, Groucho's team (Huxley College) received a kick-off from rival Darwin College after scoring a touchdown, as opposed to kicking off to Darwin. (This is actually a bit of Truth In Television, since some college all-star games used to do this to make the contests more competitive: in the Hawaii Bowl, for example, a team would get the ball back if they trailed by more than two touchdowns in the fourth quarter.)

* Averted at the climax of ''[[Little Giants]]''. The Giants' last play of the game, called "The Annexation of Puerto Rico" by its geeky play caller, was a legal play at the time better known as the "fumblerooski" (the ruling body of Pee-Wee football has since banned it).

* An in-universe example is played for laughs in [[Roger Dodger]] in an exchange between the titular character and his nephew

'''Roger''': "Right. That's the wrong sport, but I like your enthusiasm." }}

** [[Accidentally Accurate]] in light of Jordan's short-lived baseball career.

* Used to very painful effect in the Wesley Snipes version of ''The Fan''. Live video replay on the Jumbotron (which is not allowed), video of arguments between players or brawls (also not allowed), a player getting his number assigned on Opening Day (numbers are assigned during Spring Training), the climactic scene occurring at a baseball game played ''during a monsoon''... it would be easier to list what the movie got '''right'''. Such things do NOT include the long shot featuring a batter from BOTH teams warming up in their respective on-deck circles, and then later showing Snipes's character go directly from the dugout to the batter's box.

* In the 1963 Disney film ''Son of Flubber'', Professor Brainard comes up with an ingenious way to help the local high school football team win: he'll fill up a player's uniform with his new discovery, "flubber gas", to make him light and buoyant. The other players, instead of passing just the ball, will throw ''him with the ball'', so even if he is tackled, the team will retain possession of the ball. The only problem with such a ploy? It's illegal. Rule 17 section 6 of the official football rulebook, passed in 1910, specifically outlaws players on the offensive team from pushing, pulling, or holding the player carrying the ball. Nobody in the film, including the referees, seem to be aware of this.

* Similarly, in its predecessor ''The Absent-Minded Professor'', the same flubber gives basketball players shoes that allows them to take gigantic leaps. Unfortunately, by making several leaps in a row (as they do), without passing or dribbling the ball, they would be immediately called for travelling. Unlike a lot of the examples on this page, the opposing coach ''does'' realize that Medfield's game techniques are far from kosher, and complains about it loudly to the referee... whose only response is "[[Loophole Abuse|Ain't no rule says one team can't jump higher than the other!]]"

** Maybe these were NBA referees. Those guys ''never'' seem to call anyone for travelling any more.

* The movie ''It Happens Every Spring'' is about a college professor who discovers a wood-repellent compound and uses this discovery to become a successful major league pitcher. The movie never addresses the fact that applying any kind of foreign substance to the ball is cheating of the most blatant variety. Even more surprisingly, none of the umpires or opposing players seem the least bit suspicious of all the physics-defying things that the professor's pitches do. [[Fridge Logic]] makes this even worse - the rules also state that the balls used all come from the same pool, not that teams get to throw their own balls. If you coated the balls with a substance that made them dodge bats, they'd be dodging your team's bats, too. Enjoy that 0-0, extra inning game decided on walks, stolen bases, and wild pitches.

*** Maybe the rules varies by country. On the Malaysian version of the show, the call is indeed made only when the contestant requests it. One can even hear the connection tone. And there are times where the connection did not get through, in which case the host allows the contestant to pick a different number to call. Understandable because 1. The Malaysian format allows the contestant to specify a list of people he wishes to call instead of just one number, 2. Because none of the telcos signed on as a sponsor, so keeping a bunch of lines open throughout the show would've been extremely expensive, and 3. Sony Ericsson '''is''' a sponsor. [[Product Placement|They wanted the host to be able to whip out an Ericsson cellphone that's connected to the studio's PA system by Bluetooth]]. Remember that Slumdog takes place in India, and the Indian ''Millionaire'' may have slight variations in the rules as well.

** The cars and tracks have more in common with [[F-Zero]] for starters, so it's just as well the rules do too.

** Also, since the Ducks entered the playoffs as the last seed, they should have faced the number-one seed Hawks first. (Possibly averted if the exact number of teams getting into the playoffs was not a multiple of eight; the exact number isn't stated in the film, just "all but the last two" in the league.)

** The more ludicrous example in the sequel is that the [[Opposing Sports Team|big heel team]] is the noted ice hockey power of... Iceland, whose men's team was, at the time of this writing, behind such noted hockey powers as Spain, Israel, Estonia, and South Korea.

*** They probably didn't want to hurt the movie's performance in any of the traditional hockey-playing countries such as Canada or Russia. In fact, Canada's the one game where none of the play is even shown.

*** Trinidad's team also wears tie-dye jerseys. The national colors are red, white, and black.

** D2 had another example with the final shootout.. never mind that Russ switched places with Goldberg to get the shot at the end of the game, which involved him wearing goalie equipment, but under ANY circumstances, nobody can take off their helmet while on the ice anymore!

** In the final shootout to decide the tournament winner of D2, neither Fulton's nor Gunnar Stahl's penalty shots should have counted as they both clearly come to a complete stop and then shoot. During a shootout or penalty shot, the puck must always move forward.

* ''[[Nacho Libre]]'' takes a great many liberties with professional wrestling. Obviously, the most glaring issue is that it presents wrestling as real and not staged, but this can be forgiven for the sake of the plot. However, certain basic rules in professional wrestling (even in Kayfabe) are ignored. For example, to finish one match, the hero receives a tombstone piledriver, a move which is illegal in Mexico, where the story is set. In the climax of the film, he even pins his opponent..outside the ring. While there are special matches that allow pinning anywhere, this was an ordinary match, yet he does not pin his opponent in the ring. [[Rule of Cool]] doesn't even really apply here, as while the reason his opponent was outside the ring in the first place was so the hero could perform a physics defying dive attack from the turnbuckle, there's no reason he couldn't have thrown his dazed opponent into the ring to pin him legally.

* ''[[The Three Stooges]]'' parody the concept with shorts like "Three Little Beers" (golf) and "Three Little Pigskins" (football), with the Stooges just plain ignorant with the sport in question, usually using terms found in hunting and horse racing. Thus, this is [[Older Than Television]].

* Unlike other films in [[The Love Bug]] series, the last race of ''Herbie Fully Loaded'' takes place in what is, if not [[NASCAR]] itself, then a clearly NASCAR-like organization. Assuming Team Peyton could get permission to race a Volkswagon (not likely, given the time frame), Herbie is clearly A) Too old, B) (to the naked eye), has no racing modifications, C) possesses NO safety gear (Restraint harness? Roll cage? Nope!). Herbie shouldn't have passed a cursory pre-race inspection.

== [[Literature]] ==

* ''[[The Black Stallion]]''. Another one of those cases where something was within the rules when it was made, but not now... except it's a [[Long Runner]], and the series kept following the obsolete rule. The rule in question? Allowing Arabians to race against Thoroughbreds. (It was prohibited between the release of the first and second books.)

* In Edward Bloor's "Tangerine", one of the climactic moments features protagonist and goalie Paul Fisher needing to stop a last second penalty kick so that his team will tie their rival and his former team, winning the league in the process. It's a fairly uplifting idea with one small problem: it completely gets wrong the way soccer leagues are scored. See, Paul's team is undefeated whereas the other team has won the same number of games but played one more game during the season which ended in a tie. The problem? According to the scoring rules for soccer leagues, the winner is the team with the most points at the end of the season, not just the highest winning percentage. Since a tie is worth one point and a win is worth three, Paul's team needs to win, not tie, in order to win the league. And to make matters worse, they could have done this if they had just had the climactic penalty kick occur with Paul's team up by one goal. But of course that would be less dramatic...

** Either this example is badly explained, or there's some [[Writers Cannot Do Math]] going on as well. If Paul's team is undefeated, their combined number of wins and ties must be equal to the number of games played. So how can the other team possibly have the same number of wins and one ''more'' tie?

 

 

* One ''Kirk'' bowling episode, "The Spare", has so many faults that even casual bowlers are screaming at the television. For instance, mistaking a 6-pin for a 10-pin; all four members of a team bowling one game together (usually they bowl games separately); one team is leading by one pin before the ninth, and all of a sudden in the 10th that team needs three strikes to win, even when the other team got two gutter balls in the ninth. Perhaps this example would've been shorter if we had listed the stuff about bowling they got ''right''.

** The 'one game together' might just be writed off as some weird variant of Scotch Double, where two players play a game together, one playing firstball, and the other the second, until a strike is made where they switch

* Parodied on ''[[Scrubs]]'', where JD's woefully ignorant view on sports (due to [[Flanderization]]) leads to the following mixed metaphor:

** Also, in another scene, Elliot says that she'll be a bigger fraud than Barry Bonds; JD replies, "I love it when he wins at that game he plays."

** Also also, in another episode, JD tosses his friend Turk's basketball down a hospital hallway only to have it popped on the security guard's hook hand. JD apologizes to Turk and comforts him with the line "Relax, they come three to a can."

*** The first and third examples don't make much sense when you remember that JD ''does'' play basketball multiple times on the show (with the implication that it also happens at other times not shown). You'd think, after playing the game enough, he'd know what a slam dunk is, or that basketballs are sold individually.

**** Football and basketball do share at least one term (field goal), with different meanings in each, so someone with knowledge of one sport but not the other might very well think other terms from that sport that don't cross over should.

** Also ''also'' also, there's one scene which opens with JD and Turk discussing sports and agreeing that with a certain player, New York could really win the title. Then Turk asks, "which sport are we talking about here?" J.D. thinks it's tennis. Not to mention this exchange that occurs when Arnold Palmer is brought up:

'''JD''': I'm sure he has lots of hobbies, Perry, the man's a drink mogul. }}

** Also x4, at one point JD wears a T-shirt with a picture of an American Football and the caption "Soccer."

* Rebecca serves as an announcer to a hockey game that Joey participates in in an episode of ''[[Full House]].'' Feeling the need to upstage her and potentially set some [[Double Standard]] that will fly under the viewer's nose, her husband Jesse attempts to join in. Keep in mind that Jesse is not athletic in any shape or form and knows nothing about sports, so naturally he looks like a complete idiot not knowing about the penalty box or even the ''game clock.'' This happens in another episode when he tries to play basketball to impress his children.

** And keep in mind that Jesse is a horrible case of [[Characterization Marches On]]. Earlier seasons had him being as athletic and knowing about sports as Danny and Joey; after the fourth season, he has no athletic ability and claims to know nothing about sports at all (as demonstrated above.)

* The "Turkey Day" version of the ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'' episode "Night of the Blood Beast" does this intentionally in its first host segment. Mike and the bots make contradictory references as Gypsy tries to guess which sport they're talking about; when it comes back from commercial, it turns out that it was Australian Rules Football.

** In the opening for ''[[Red Zone Cuba]]'', Mike and The Bots are playing "high stakes" bingo and Magic Voice calls out "B-37." On standard Bingo cards, B holds numbers 1-15. 37 would be under "G".

** This shows up in a riff for ''[[Wild Rebels]]''. The protagonist, Rod Tillman (played by Steve Alaimo) arrives at the club by hitch-hiking with a rotund, older gentleman wearing a ballcap.

'''TOM''': "Yeah, whatever! Thanks for the ride! Good luck with the ''football'' team or whatever it is you do!". }}

* Parodied in sketch show ''[[That Mitchell and Webb Look]]'', which features two completely incompetent film writers; the film, nominally about cricket, ends with an amateur team from Yorkshire ("Cricket? In ''Yorkshire''?") making the final of the Ashes against a cheating German team (for those who don't know, The Ashes is a series of five matches between England and Australia; there is no 'final', it's just a best-of-five scenario).

*** [[That Mitchell and Webb Look|That's Zugzwang!]] would be a nice quip, were it not that the German Zugzwang is composed from Zug (a move) and Zwang (being forced), not from zugz and wang.

* Parodied, like everything else, on ''[[The Colbert Report]]''. After Senator Obama's acceptance speech, Stephen Colbert had former football player Tiki Barber assess the speech. He replied by saying, "As someone who knows a bit about football, I can safely say that Obama hit a home run."

** Note that sliding versus running ''past'' first base is a speed issue; you should run past unless sliding is the only way to avoid being tagged out. However, the Mythbusters were testing sliding versus running ''and stopping'' on a base.

*** This is actually a very good demonstration. Everyone (except some moronic Major Leaguers who STILL slide through first, even without threat of a tag play) knows running through a bag is faster than sliding, but when going to second or third, where overrunning is not usually desired, sliding will be faster, because if you stay up, you have to slow down in order to stop on the bag. Or at least, that's the theory they were testing.

* Cricket enthusiast Aaron Sorkin included in ''[[Sports Night]]'' a line that in an Test (International) match, one of the bowlers had achieved the remarkable feat of taking all 10 wickets in a single innings (a feat only achieved twice in history - Jim Laker in 1956 and Anil Kumble in 1999), and compared it to a baseball pitcher throwing "3 straight perfect games." Whether that comparison is valid, the professional sports commentators can't understand how the bowler could have conceded any runs while doing this (which would be, in cricketing terms, a virtually miraculous occurrence). Even with absolutely no knowledge of the rules of cricket, you'd presume they'd realise that the standards of scoring in the two games were rather different.

** Well, they ARE [[Eagle Land|American]]

** I tested "the problem with Arsenal is they just walk it in" line and it works quite well.

** Something similar happens in the first episode of ''The [[Armando Iannucci]] Shows'', in which [[Author Avatar|Iannucci]] discovers that everyone in Britain who discusses football in pubs is merely {{spoiler|being fed information from experts who hide in the pubs' cellars}}. After breaking the earpiece connection, Iannucci is reassured that deep down, everyone is just as bewildered by the sport (and by social interaction) as he is.

* Steve Coogan apparently wrote [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzSQ3xgoh-w this segment from The Day Today] with no knowledge of, or enthusiasm for, football, and it shows (in the best possible way). "That... '''was a goal!!!'''"

** Not to mention for every pissed-off fan, there would've been two who would've ridiculed him for playing the "Do you know who I am?" card.

** And on top of that, if it was that close to game time, shouldn't he have been at the arena ''already''? If such a thing happened in the real world, the sports media would have been chewing him out mercilessly.

* ''[[Seinfeld]]'': "The Wink". After a promise to a sick child that Paul O'Neill will hit two home runs doesn't work out as planned, Kramer pacifies the child by promising that in the next game, O'Neill will catch a fly ball in his hat. This would be an incredibly stupid thing for O'Neill to do; intentionally touching the ball with a piece of equipment other than his glove is illegal for a fielder to do and would result in the batter automatically being given ''three'' bases.

** Another ''Seinfeld'' example comes from the episode where Jerry dates an Olympic gymnast expecting acrobatic sex and being disappointed when the sex turns out to be extremely ordinary. After the encounter, Jerry describes his disappointment to Elaine saying that he expected her to use him as the apparatus. Elaine asks, "You mean like the uneven parallel bars? Or the balance beam? Not... the pommel horse?" This might explain why Jerry found the sex disappointing; his girlfriend would have no experience using a pommel horse since that particular apparatus only appears in men's gymnastics.

** Another episode had the four attending a Yankees game. When they take a visit to the locker room afterward, one unnamed player is seen wearing jersey number 9. The Yankees retired that number for Roger Maris.

**** They might have used #42, since it's been retired throughout the Major Leagues for Jackie Robinson, but the Yankees' roster also contained Mariano Rivera, the last player still playing to wear #42 before the number was universally retired.

* On an episode of ''[[Gilmore Girls]]'', Lorelai says 'Nice save, Gretzky.' Wrong position.

* In the ''[[Even Stevens]]'' episode "Head Games," Alan Twitty enters a baseball game as a relief pitcher. Coming straight from the dugout, he immediately steps on the mound and the game instantly resumes. Regardless of level of play, baseball never works like this. Pitchers ''always'' warm up by throwing several practice pitches off to the side before entering the game (in college and professional leagues, this is the bullpen, but many little league and high schools teams just use an open field that's out of the way), and are then allowed several more warmup pitches while on the mound. Throwing a baseball hard repeatedly is one of the most risky and injurious things you can do to your body and should only be done once the arm muscles have been properly exercised and loosened. Not doing so can easily cause you to permanently damage your arm. Obviously, this is also an example of [[The Law of Conservation of Detail]].

* Done in a pair of ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' sketches where the Wishmakers Foundation grants a child's desire to be a sports commentator at a professional game (football the first game, basketball the 2nd). The only football term he knows is "That'll move the chains!" and basketball, "Nothing but the bottom of the net!" This eventually gets taken to a hilarious extreme when the other commentators lets him take over to make up for complaining about the supposed disease (the kid said he had O.C.D. when asked, but this really stood for "Overwhelming Corpse Disease") and eventually begins shouting various sports terms and maneuvers all in the same sentence ending with "NOTHING BUT THE BOTTOM OF THE NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!" and then dies onscreen.

* ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'' has O'Neill using a sports metaphor on Weir at one point, leading to this exchange:

'''O'Neill''': "Nor hockey, apparently." }}

* In the "Stealing Home" episode of ''[[White Collar]]'', everything about the heist during a Yankees game pretty much seems to be fine, until you see the date of the check handed to Neal, dated "3/7/12." Unless it was backdated, regular season games at the earliest start in late March, and normally at the beginning of April.

* Played for laughs in ''[[Top Gear]]'', with Jeremy Clarkson talking at one point about "golf bats".

 

== [[Music]] ==

* [[Jonathan Coulton]]'s song "Kenesaw Mountain Landis" invokes this intentionally for comic effect, as well as a complete misunderstanding of the historical facts surrounding the black sox scandal.

* "Glory Days" by [[Bruce Springsteen]]. "Speedball", Bruce? Try '''fast'''ball.

 

 

* In ''[[Calvin and Hobbes]]'', when Calvin is teased into playing baseball at school, he says "Suppose they make me a halfback. Can I tackle the shortstop or not?"

** When Calvin and Hobbes aren't playing [[Calvin Ball]], they'll be making a mockery of any actual sport they try, usually baseball but also football, croquet and golf. As the boy himself puts it: "Our favourite games are ones we don't understand!" And sometimes, it's deliberate.

* Any time a sporting event is held in ''[[Safe Havens]]'', it's a good bet that the rules of the game will be sacrificed to the [[Rule of Funny]]. Examples include the university band playing during game action in a basketball game (which would result in a bench technical - two free throws + possession for the other team - in real life) and Dave being allowed to wear sunglasses with a built-in MP3 player (Only protective or prescription eye wear is allowed).

* In ''[[Peanuts]]'', Charlie Brown's baseball team often lost games by lopsided margins like 100 to 1. However, American Little League Baseball has the Mercy Rule, which stops the game early to avoid such humiliation. While Charlie Brown is certainly stubborn enough to keep playing, there is no mention of the umpire enforcing, or even bringing up the rule.

** It's made clear, though, that Charlie Brown's team doesn't play official Little League baseball, as various strips depict team managers calling each other and scheduling games, and even a plot arc where the baseball games were ended because the owner of the sandlot decided it was too much of a liability to have the kids playing on his property.

 

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

{{quote|"Well, no matter, because I'm still holding all the cards. And guess what? They're all full houses."|"Ace of fours! The best hand. Unbeatable! ...I would imagine."}}

* ''Blitz: The League''. The entire game is devoted to the [[Rule of Cool]], at the expense of any pretense of realism (are there ''any'' referees?). However, in this case, it is something of a [[Justified Trope]], as the series' makers are on record calling the NFL the "No Fun League" for forcing their licensed football titles to be squeaky-clean in terms of content, which pretty much forbids developers from even alluding to any of the shadier aspects of [[American Football]] culture. When EA got exclusive rights to the NFL license, Midway was more than happy to go completely over the top with their latest Blitz title, bringing in notorious ex-linebacker Lawrence Taylor as their spokesman, and hiring the writers of ESPN's controversial hit ''Playmakers'' to write the story.

** In fact, BTL actually ''was'' a ''Playmakers'' licensed game, until the NFL forced ESPN to kill the show. Also, take in mind that ''Blitz'' was not the first time Midway made a [[Aint No Rule]] style sports game: ''Arch Rivals'' is one of their earlier attempts at the genre, which they then followed with the popular ''[[NBA Jam]]'' series.

* In ''[[Brain Dead 13]]'', Moose, the Frankenstein's Monster-esque jock, talks vaguely sports related gibberish when you're fighting him.

[[Obscure Game Theatre]]: "That... that didn't make any ''sense!''" }}

* Practically all licensed sports titles avert this trope, due to their focus on providing the most realistic sports experiences possible for fans of the sport. A few, however, go in a less realistic, more arcade direction, realizing that some players feel that increased accessibility and the [[Rule of Cool]] are more important than a simulation experience. Examples include Midway's ''NBA Ballers'' games and EA's ''Street'' series of sports games. A former licensed example would be Midway's ''NFL Blitz'' series, until they lost the license to EA.

** EA's Rugby 08 has several problems (e.g. with the rules too), like scrums going to the wrong team when the ball is unplayable in the ruck, and losing penalty advantage if the ball goes into touch... And other touches such as being able to kick the ball away when expecting a tackle (probably a limitation of the programming but still something one should be able to do). The commentators often seem lacking in insight, despite one of them being an actual former All-black, Grant Fox.

** An official Nintendo of America strategy guide called the baseball-throwing Chuck a "Confused Chuck".

** The large rocks guys might be playing lacrosse. Except for the large rocks part.

 

== [[Web Animation]] ==

 

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* ''[[Sinfest]]'':

* Done for humor in Norwegian satire webcomic ''Fantastic-Man'', where the titular [[Superhero]] uses a piece of wood to bat a thrown grenade back at his enemies [http://www.nettserier.no/fantastiskmann/2008/07/22 while spouting VERY wrong baseball terminology].

* Also done for humor in ''[[Penny Arcade (Webcomic)|Penny Arcade]]'', where Gabe mixes sports lingo in a desperate attempt to pretend he knows what game is going on that weekend.

** In one strip, the guys are playing a football video game. Gabe criticizes it for not being an accurate simulation of the sport, since there's no ice.

* [http://www.firmanproductions.com/?p=664 Moe]

** Probably not intentional, but it ''is'' an [[Alternate Universe]].

* Every ''[[Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff (Webcomic)|Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff]]'' comic involving sports lives and breathes this trope as part of its [[Stylistic Suck]] shtick.

 

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

 

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* Parodied in ''[[Futurama]]'' by the legendary Zapp Brannigan, only with board and parlor games:

** Also:

** Also from ''Futurama'', in the episode ''A Leela of Her Own'' (parodying the film ''[[A League of Their Own]]''), Leela becomes the first ever female professional Blernsball player, a game that is made out to be the future version of baseball. In the episode, it is mentioned that Leela has pitched 77.0 innings without recording a single out. In baseball, a pitcher is only credited with innings pitched if they record outs. Possibly handwaved, since it is blernsball, not baseball.

*** It's worth noting that ''Futurama'' isn't even consistent with its own rules. When blernsball is introduced in "Fear of a Bot Planet," Fry's knowledge of baseball rules and lingo make him seem like an idiot, since none of it is valid for blernsball. But in "A Leela of Their Own," blernsball's rules are almost identical to baseball, and much of the terminology used comes from baseball.

* The ''[[South Park]]'' episode ''Make Love, Not Warcraft'' makes many, ''many'' errors with the game ''[[World of Warcraft]]''. Just to name a few: a player-character human cannot attack another PC human; about 3000 players cannot be in one zone without some serious lag; and surely you cannot level up just by killing low-level boars. These errors, however, were [[Rule of Funny|deliberate on the part of the writers]] (Blizzard actually helped them make the episode), as if [[Calvin Ball]] but with a real-life game.

*** And since they mentioned he could break the rules because he had reached a level they thought unreachable, the rules of the game were actually being acknowledged at this point.

** There is no way they didn't know exactly where the flaws were, there are even background references to earlier Warcraft games.

** At least one example is so amazingly thick with errors it might be due to deliberate effort: Randy Marsh's character is a level two human hunter (this episode was created long before Blizzard was even planning to make that possible) who has defeated the bad guys at Jerod's landing, and he has just joined a big party of night elves to explore the tower of Azora together. It's amazing how there's so much in-game nonsense packed into such a small space.

*** To point out the inaccuracies: the enemies around Jerod's landing are so high level that a level 2 hunter would have been trounced by a single mob of that area, had he made it alive through the spiders and defias bandits around it. Even if he had, he would have gotten enough experience in one chunk to make it at least two levels up. Finally, the tower of Azora has no hostile mobs that would attack an alliance character. A level 1 character can walk in, take a look around and leave unmolested.

*** We must acknowledge that part of the point of the episode was very likely to make some harmless (and some harmful) fun of the very people who would know what mistakes they made.

** Actually, it's impossible to get experience off of mobs that are more than 5 levels beneath you.

*** Boars come in more than one level, you know.

'''Dexter''': Looked like a popfly into the endzone. }}

** The goalie-captain rule is kind of relaxed, though: see Roberto Luongo.

*** Not Strictly true - Luongo was captain in an honorary position - hence why the 'C' is on his mask and not his Jersey

* In ''[[Kim Possible]]'', there was one episode where they run a play called a flea flicker. Here's the thing: one, a flea flicker is a play where the quarterback gives the ball to the runningback, who fakes like he's going to run with it, but then turns around and tosses it back to the quarterback. Ron never even attempts a pass. Two, it was on a field goal, so it would've been more appropriate to call it a fake field goal. And three, they had Ron out there with a kicker and the placeholder, which meant the fake should've been seen a mile away.

* In ''[[King of the Hill]]'', Bill is Arlen High's record-holder for most touchdowns, until a kid ties him but injures himself on the play. In the next game, the opposing team lets him walk into the endzone on crutches to claim the record. Crutches are not allowed on the playing field. Then, the coach of Arlen High (who was Bill's coach and still respected him) and Hank realize that Bill never officially graduated because he left early to join the Army. So he suits up for one game to tie the record. Texas High School football has a hard age limit, regardless of academic status.

* Intentionally done in ''[[The Penguins of Madagascar]]'' when the penguins try to play hockey against the sewer rats. King Julien is assigned as a cheerleader, and tries to demoralise the rats;

"Oh, thanks ... You probably can't even get the ball into the puck thingy!" }}

* In an episode of ''[[Family Guy]]'' Peter says...

 

 

** Also the all-too common cases where a character is shown to be smart in that he can either win most games of chess in less than ____ moves or can think 10/20/you name it moves ahead.

** Silliest of all: in ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' episode 71, Ami and Berthier replay a real-life game between Spassky and Fischer. Ami continues after the point at which Spassky resigned - and ''wins''. (There have been cases where players resigned and analysts later discovered a possible winning continuation, but the game in question is not one of them.)

*** There was an error in that very episode; they referred to blitz chess as "speed chess" at least once.

**** Not an error - perfectly valid alternative term - it incorporates blitz, and may, depending on context, incorporate rapidplay. (For those who are interested, "blitz" is when each player has less than 15 minutes for the entire game, "rapidplay" is when each player has at least 15 minutes but less than an hour, and "standard play" is when each player has at least an hour. For time settings with increment timing, these categories refer to the time available to reach move 60. Slightly different rules apply to each of the three forms of chess.)

** A newspaper strip called ''Big Nate'' did an arc about the title character taking part in a middle school chess competition, and wonderfully averted the statement above about players never shaking hands. Each time he shook hands with an opponent, Nate psyched him with a different bit of trash talk, including the simple statement, "Your hands are all sweaty." (The other kid stammered that he had a glandular problem, and Nate thought, "He's mine.")

** And the board positions (if shown) themselves! God, the positions on the board! Pawns on the eight ranks. Bishops on the same colors. Both kings in check simultaneously. Three of the same piece with all 8 pawns still on the board. Quadrupled and quintupled pawns. In general a mishmash of board configurations that are either completely illegal or even if just barely legal, mindblowingly unlikely to ever occur in any real game between actual real players.

** The episode of ''[[Family Ties]]'' where Alex plays chess against a Russian is an interesting case. They actually got many of the details right, including the use of the chess clock. But the presence of live commentary in the same room was more than a little silly, Alex's whole moral dilemma for the episode is created by ignoring the sealed-move rule for adjournments, and of course, for some reason the Russian who suddenly decides he wants to lose can't simply do so by resigning.

*** Stanely Kubrick was a borderline professional level chess player and the board position was taken directly from a masters level game. It seems pretty unlikely that HAL misreading the board was anything other than foreshadowing.

** Played for laughs in ''[[Futurama]]'' where one of two robots playing chess declares: "Mate in 137 moves!" - from the opening position.

* Probably just about every work of fiction involving [[Cricket]] that wasn't written by a professional player or umpire.

 

== Other ==

* ''[[Private Eye]]'' has the spoof sports columnist Sally Jockstrap. A typical Jockstrap column might say how pleased she is that Michael Owen (a footballer) is playing in the Six Nations (a rugby tournement) and she hopes he scores a six (a cricketing term) against Paraguay (not one of the six nations, but at this point it hardly matters).

* It's very rare for [[Professional Wrestling]] to be portrayed as anything less than 100% real in fiction. In fact, many wrestling movies even feature the hero's refusal to take a dive to satisfy a shady promoter as a pivotal plot point. This may have been forgivable back in the day, when the average film or TV show's "Technical Consultant" would be trying to uphold [[Kayfabe]], but in the modern day, when even [[Vince McMahon]] himself admits it to be staged, one might think to take a look at the world behind the curtain...

** At best, I could see it being more of a people issue - a wrestler switching promotions or some such and unwilling to drop the title to someone else, for instance.

*** The conflict came about because the promoter was loathe to even take the chance that two "Communists" could be their champions (fearing the fans wouldn't accept it. A fair fear in 1950s Texas), so wanted them to take the dive. Crisis averted when one of the champions (played by legendary wrestler Terry Funk) insisted on playing things straight... mostly so he could pound on Sam without consequence (and Sam was barred from using any martial arts to defend himself).

** What tends to annoy is the set up of the ring area: the ropes are almost always too loose and there's no gap between the ring and the fans, both of which would be detrimental to putting on a good match.

** In ''[[Forrest Gump]]'' (the ''novel''), Forrest spends some time as a professional wrestler during a time when the fact that wrestling is staged is a carefully guarded secret. He's supposed to lose an important match, but a friend of his tells Forrest to break the script and try to win for real so they can make money on a bet. And actually, this is a fairly accurate description of how wrestling worked back in the day, as some wrestlers would "go into business for themselves"; usually, though, this was for higher stakes than just a bet, as it tended to get a wrestler blackballed.

** On the other hand, to perpetuate the "Wrestling is real" phenomenon, whenever someone yells "Wrestling is Fake" in a TV show, rest assured any wrestler who hears it will wade into the crowd and show him just how "fake" it is. Apparently blatant assault with hundreds to thousands of witnesses is pretty casual. Unless the guy's a plant...

*** Believe it or not, there is some [[Truth in Television]] to that. Back before guys like Vincent McMahon actually admitted wrestling was staged, that was company policy. If anyone was to ask a wrestler if what they did wasn't fake, they could expect to get body slammed. As a result, many wrestlers really did get arrested or sued.

*** Also, many more extreme professional wrestlers do take offense to people calling it "fake" because it implies they aren't actually doing their impressive stunts. Yes, the matches are played up to look a lot more like real fights, and the winner is often pre-determined, but as [[Mick Foley]] would point out, there is no way to "fake" jumping twenty feet through a table covered in thumbtacks.

** This is totally inverted by the ''fandom.'' Browse through the [http://www.fanfiction.net/misc/Wrestling/ wrestling section at fanfiction.net] and compare how much of it is based on [[Kayfabe]] to how much of it is basically [[Real Person Fic]].

* Pretty much every depiction of poker in film or TV features a line to the effect of, "I see your bet and raise you...". In real life, this is a 'string bet' and the player would be forced to only call.

* [http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wCPnNmUV3wk/TeXZrpizX3I/AAAAAAAAVCc/yMIpQ0pm_cI/s400/stacey%2B%2528smc%2529.ow.basketball%2Brequest%2B%2528baseball%2Bplayers%2529.jpg This cake.]

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

** The truly hilarious part? That tie put the Eagles into the playoffs. If it was a loss, they would have been eliminated.

** The whole thing was made worse<ref>or better, depending on how funny you ridiculous you found it</ref> when other players stepped up to defend McNabb's gaffe. Most notably Pittsburgh Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger, who stated that probably half the league's players wouldn't know that rule (Which has been in effect since 1974 and is spelled out - by the announcers AND the referee - at the beginning of any OT period) and Steelers receiver Hines Ward, who stated that he might not have realized it either, had he been in McNabb's place (doubly painful, since Ward ''played in the last tie game'', four years earlier)

** The best response was from ESPN, who did an entire video entry about "other things Donovan McNabb might not know": "a team earns a first down after going ten yards, a touchdown is worth six points...", etc.

* In a 2009 game between the Bengals and the Browns, broadcaster Rich Gannon debated whether the Bengals should run down the clock before kicking an overtime field goal, so as not to allow the Browns time to return a kick. His broadcast partner helpfully reminded him that NFL overtime is sudden death.

* Check this quote from soccer player Lukas Podolski: 'Soccer is like chess, only without the dice'.

** Although chess ''was'' played with dice in the 1400s (which led some churches to ban it due to considering it a form of gambling), one really doubts Podolski knew that.

* Shoeless Joe Jackson had the puck in the form of House Member Christopher Shays' "In 1919 the Chicago Blackhawks Scandal...", apparently referring to the "Black Sox scandal" where players of the Chicago White Sox baseball team fixed the 1919 World Series. The Chicago Blackhawks is an ice hockey team founded in 1926.

** [[Mondegreen|Well, if you had never seen it written out...]]

** And she actually ''was'' a point guard when she played high school basketball. Though if you think about it, maybe her inability to properly understand how to defeat a full-court press is why she didn't play in college.

* While competitions are rarely shown, plenty of visual media show Western fencing being practiced, especially by wealthy, [[White Anglo Saxon Protestant|WASP]]y Americans or Brits. Common mistakes include showing fencers wearing two gloves (fencers only wear one), fencers circling each other (fencers can only move within a narrow rectangular playing field called a piste) and, because presumably most people portraying them aren't actually fencers, really bad technique, like poking their arms out at each other hoping for a touch (in the sabre and foil subsets just about all offensive actions involve lunging, running or jumping at one's opponent).

** Fencers who are prone to covering target (read: bad fencers) sometimes wear a backhand glove for protection.

* More than one retired baseball umpire has admitted he had no idea how to correctly identify and call a balk on a pitcher.

** Fans aren't any better at identifying balks. It's a sure bet that any time a pitcher for the visiting team does the fake-to-third-then-throw-to-first maneuver, the fans will be howling for the umpire to call a balk... even though this play is perfectly legal as long as the pitcher removes his foot from the pitching rubber before throwing to first.

* The book "The Stupidest Things Ever Said By Politicians" gives us this beauty of an analogy:

* Many boxing fans don't seem to realize that the referee, the timekeeper, and their jobs have no official relationship during a fight, and thus unfairly accuse a ref of screwing a fighter with a decision that didn't take time into account. The most infamous examples:

** The "Long Count Fight" of 1927 where Gene Tunney retained the heavyweight title against Jack Dempsey. Many people felt Dempsey was robbed of a knockout win when he floored Tunney in the seventh round because referee Dave Barry spent five seconds ordering Dempsey to go to a neutral corner before starting the count. By the rules, however, this was exactly what Barry should have done since Dempsey didn't immediately do so (many also don't realize this was the first title fight ever to use the neutral corner rule). Some boxing fans have suggested Barry was supposed to have checked with the timekeeper and adjusted his count accordingly; however, there is nothing in the rules saying that's what he should have done.

** When the NHL shortly thereafter announced that goals in the crease were no longer reviewable plays, everyone assumed they were covering their tracks because of the Hull goal, but the league had made that decision before the Stanley Cup Finals began.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Did Not Do the Research]]

[[Category:Sports Story Tropes]]