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Shownotes Transcript
Did you grow up believing the sacrifice bunt was baseball's surest path to a run? Or that a smooth mid-range jumper in basketball beat the risk of a 35-foot three? Modern analytics have put those debates to bed. Most times, you're better off letting your batter swing away. And as a league average shooter, you'd score more from downtown than from the mid-posts.
This week on Rule Breaker Investing, we're stepping off the trading floor and into the stadium with longtime sports journalist, podcaster, high school basketball coach, and Major League Baseball scout Kimball Crosley, one of the sharpest rule breakers I know in athletics. Kimball has spent decades challenging the orthodox playbooks of pro sports. You may know the sack bunt,
punchline in the mid-range jump shot punchline by now. But Kimball's here to throw some new thoughts your way. What are sports journalists, fans, coaches, owners missing or getting wrong in sports today? This week, only on Rule Breaker Investing. It's the Rule Breaker Investing podcast with Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner.
The world of sports has as much conventional wisdom wrapped in and all around it as the world of money and investing. And as the Michael Lewis book made into a movie, pretty good one, entitled Moneyball, clearly demonstrated the world of sports and of finance are inextricably bound. Just as we're looking to invest in stocks that will win the share of profits in their industries and do so with excellence over, we hope, a long, sustainable period of time, those are the rule breakers I talk about every week.
So, too, do teams look to make investments in players. This one, not that one. Akin to picking stocks. And those teams hope those players perform, win on the field, make a lot of money for the organization as well as for themselves, reward the fans, win, win, win. But...
as Moneyball and the great baseball mind of Bill James that came before it have proven not every team's investment in a player or a play or a strategy or tactic or head coach, not every team's investment in those things is well thought out or pays off. Sports has its losers and losing investments too. So, just as I think taking a Rule Breaker mentality as an investor exhibiting the six habits of the Rule Breaker investor will win in your investing,
Turns out breaking the rules, rethinking or reframing how to approach the game can also win in sports. Think about dunking. Dunking was actually illegal in college basketball from 1967 to 1976. The NCAA banned the dunk before the 1967-68 season, citing injury concerns and a desire to reduce the advantage of taller players like
Lou Alcindor, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. So, yeah, times change and thoughts change, too. Conventional wisdom rules the roost on sports commentaries, whether it's hot takes you see on ESPN or that morning sports call-in show you may listen to during your commute.
If you're a sports fan, you're in for a treat this week. Get ready to rethink one or more of the things you may take for granted as a truism in sports. My guest this week is Kimball Crosley, a favorite sports writer and podcaster of mine who's been a Major League Baseball scout since 1999. Kimball's podcast, Three Point Range, features him and two other bright lights, all of whom bring a point down.
each podcast to challenge our thinking about what we're seeing on the field and in the sports headlines. I first got to know Kimball way before that when we both attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Before that, we were actually at the same New England school, no less. So Kimball is a friend, a friend I want to share with you this week.
Speaking of sports, I want to mention we have a Rule Breaker Investing Podcast weekend extra. George Foreman dearly departed this earth earlier this month. A wonderful man, great athlete, great human being. Also a great guest on the Motley Fool radio show back in the day. I'm going to be joined by Motley Fool longtime producer Matt Greer. Matt and I
are going to re-listen together to our short-form Motley Fool radio show back in our NPR days. That interview we did with George Foreman, Mac and I will offer some thoughts as well. It'll be short. I hope it'll be sweet. A Rule Breaker weekend extra popping up in your feed this Saturday morning. But first...
As I shared at the start of the year, my 2025 book, Rule Breaker Investing, is available for pre-order now. After 30 years of stock picking, this is my magnum opus, a lifetime of lessons distilled into one definitive guide. And each week until the book launches on September 16th, I'm sharing a random excerpt. We break open the book to a random page, and I read a few sentences. So,
Let's do it. Here's this week's Page Breaker Preview. A few sentences from around page 40 of the book, and I swear I randomized. This week, of all weeks, it's about baseball. And I quote, a single home run is far more impactful than a single strikeout. In fact, even if a player strikes out four times every single game over and over, known as a golden sombrero, but hits a home run on his fifth at bat,
that player would be on the short list every year for league's most valuable player. And what's true in baseball is truer in investing, where the contrast is even sharper.
End quote. That's this week's Page Breaker preview to pre-order my final word on stock picking shaped by three decades of market-crushing success. Just type Rule Breaker Investing into Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com, or wherever you shop for great books. You know, think about it. Of all kinds of books, a great investment book literally pays for itself. Should, anyway. And to everyone who's already pre-ordered, thanks. That means a lot to me. All right. Kimmel Crosley, welcome.
Thank you. It's great to be here. Kimball, you've brought along several examples we're going to go through this week.
conventional wisdom in sports that you've observed, that likely many of us, Kimball, have observed. And you're like, "No, that's wrong. They're not doing it right." And whether we're talking about the athletes, the coaches, or the media who cover them, it's not limited to any one sport. So, let me start by asking you about a very popular sport many Americans love, which kicks off around Labor Day every year, and that's American football.
Kimball, even in just the last decade, the game has changed. Somebody, somebody had a light bulb go on over their head, gathered the data, and proved that we were doing it wrong. The example I'm thinking of is the rote tendency in football on fourth down and one or two or three, just a punt, give up the ball or try a field goal maybe. Kimball, I know it started earlier than that, but by way of getting into rule breaker sports spirit this week, what happened there and why?
Well, you know, it's interesting. That's a great example. When I was younger, 30, 40 years ago, I read The Hidden Game of Baseball, which tried to
prove some of these points. And then I found the hidden game of football, which had some of those. And I believe one of the things in there was, uh, yeah, you should almost never punt because giving up the football anywhere is worse than just taking your best chance. And it is interesting that years and years later, finally, we're seeing that and we're seeing it, but we're seeing a lot of teams are still pushing back. A lot of analysts or, or pundits, I should say, are pushing back on that. And, um,
And I think it's funny, ever the contrarian, I will almost push back on that myself because I do coach. And I'm going to mention your cold open where you talked about how we realize that the three-pointer is much more valuable than the mid-range jump shot. But just like going forward in football, unending down,
When you're coaching, it's not so much the fear of being wrong and, oh, I'm going to look so bad if I go for it here is the biggest factor. You know what your players can and can't do.
And so going back to the basketball example of the three-pointer, like, yeah, if we could shoot open three-pointers or three-pointers all day long, we'd probably throw more points. But guess what? The defense isn't going to let us get three-pointers wherever we want. And they're also going to do a good job of now, they realize, taking away the inside shot and the layup and the dunk. And so...
It's funny, when I coach, one of the things I coach my team to be good at is the mid-range shot. And of course, I'd rather have an open layup. I'd rather have an open three. But when you don't get that, you better be able to do something else. And that shot is often the mid-range jumper. So I want to be good at that when we have to get it. And I noticed that a couple of years ago, I think that in the NBA Finals,
It came down to one mid-range jumper after another because both teams were taking away the two things that the other teams wanted to do. And so in football, you know, you might say like, hey, it's worth it trying it on fourth and five from here. But you're like, look, we can't even push these guys back for a yard. You know, we're better off kicking the ball away and maybe our defense can make something happen. And of course, you know, it all goes to time and score and things like that. But yeah, it's just time is...
It's been funny to watch over our lifetimes, Dave, because we've talked about this. We talked about this when we first met about a lot of baseball analytics. We've seen teams embracing them, things that we were running around going like, oh my gosh, why don't you do this? Why don't you realize this? Just like your example of the home run. And now, years and years later, they're pretty commonplace. And most people realize how much more valuable the home run is. In fact, that's why we're seeing a lot of problems in baseball now where
teams, it's not pleasant to the eye to watch a game where all anybody does is walk, strike out, or hit a home run. Well, we're going to talk some about Major League Baseball coming up, I know. All right, Kimball, you and I talked about it ahead of time. You're bringing three cardinal points. There may be some other challenges to conventional wisdom beyond just that, but you have three primary ones in mind. Let's get started with
Point number one from our three-point range podcast host. Okay. This one is that momentum is not...
a real phenomenon. It's not a reliable phenomenon. And of course, we hear it every sports broadcast, every game we watch. And it's like, oh, they've got the momentum now. And what I like to say is, you know what? If momentum existed in sports, the team that scored first would win every time. Because it's like, they've got the momentum. So what good is momentum if it could change at any time? That doesn't mean you had it. So it's like, they've got the momentum. Well, now they don't. And so I...
I just think it's, we observe it, we see a pattern, we see a team go on a run,
But it's not like this real reliable thing. I don't do a lot of gambling, but I'm sure gamblers must run into this all the time. And it's similar, I guess, to stocks. Just because something is happening several times in a row doesn't mean it's going to happen the very next time. And just because it's gone up 10 days in a row doesn't mean it's going to go up at 11th. In fact, the opposite is true. You know, it occurs to me, Kimmel, the line we never hear, because you're right, announcers are always referencing the momentum of
What we never hear is they're losing the momentum or the momentum is switching. Like those are lines. I literally, and I have watched thousands of hours of sports. I'm not sure I've even ever heard in a main, a mainline announcer say something like that. It's always just recognizing, as you just said, we're,
What we've already seen on court, the fans are all reacting to it because, of course, the team scored three times in a row. So they have the momentum. But, Kimball, does the data also back you up here? Is it generally true that – because I imagine in basketball, I'm thinking about a sport where people get, in quotes, hot.
somebody hits their first two threes when they attempt their third three back to back to back I would think maybe they have a higher percentage chance of draining that three I don't actually know I'm not presuming you know this is a little bit analytic heavy but is there some momentum out there
No, I have seen studies about the hot hand. And in fact, the studies have pretty much shown it doesn't exist, you know, and it makes sense because it would be the same idea. Like you're hot until you're not. So when you say or stop the study now, he made four in a row. Now we're done. I don't care that he just missed the next five, but he made four in a row. He had the hot hand. And so, you know, it's funny because I.
I do still coach. I coach at that high school level and have for the last 30 years at one level or another. And it's funny because when you coach,
And when I made this point on three-point range, the other two hosts were pushing back at me and saying, well, what about when you call a timeout in basketball? I said, well, there's lots of times you call a timeout and it doesn't change the momentum. You know, we think it does, but sometimes it doesn't. But when I call a timeout, it's usually to fix something, to change a real thing, not to like,
I'm just calling this to change the mood and the team. When your team is on the road and the other team just went on a 10-2 run and the fans are going crazy, you've never called a timeout just to shut the fans up? I've called a timeout to say, you know what? They scored 10 points in a row because we didn't box out or because we didn't deny the post or because we keep turning the ball over. It's usually to fix something real, not to just...
And it's funny because I do think that, as we talked about in the pod, confidence and momentum could be closely aligned. And I do think confidence is definitely a factor in sports. So a lot of times you call the timeout to change the confidence level of your team. Say like, look, I know it feels bad. I know they're going crazy. I know they scored 10 points in a row and this guy just dunked in your face. But guess what? If we had just run the right play there and hadn't turned the ball over, they wouldn't have had that breakaway dunk. So how about
we get back, remember this play runs with you screening down and you doing this, you make some adjustment. Usually you talk about something real or you just give it some confidence. Like, Hey, I know it seems like we can't play with these guys, but remember what we worked on in practice and this and that, and you're trying to instill confidence. And, you know, I play individual sports too. I'm always trying to boost my own confidence when I've got a bad, a non hot hand, a cold hand. And, you know, the same things happen in sports, but I don't think it's,
I don't think it's a real thing the way announcers talk about it. And that is obviously so contrarian because it is ubiquitous, the momentum talk. It is taken as gospel, I think, by the media who covers sports and also by all of us, so many fans watching sports. We're talking about the momentum, change the momentum. No one ever says again, they appear to be losing the momentum we talked about.
I did. It was funny because I coached football briefly at the high school level. And I remember one coach, I really respected him. But one time on the sideline, he heard something. I heard him say something like, let's change the momentum. I'm like, okay, coach, how do you want to do that? Okay. Shall we? You know, and it's like every, you know, team says like, we want to get off to a good start. Like, okay. Yeah, of course. You don't say let's start slow. Makes no sense.
So, Kimball, you are based in Providence, Rhode Island. You've been there a long time. I think you grew up in New York City. Am I right? Yes. Yeah. Right in Manhattan. How long have you been in Providence? Most of the last 35 years. I did live in Phoenix, Arizona for seven, but
For the most part, the last 30 years, I'd say. And I remember you writing for your local newspaper, both, I think, in Massachusetts for a while and then also over in Providence. And yet you're talking now about your many coaching experiences. And that's really what I wanted to ask you a little bit more about now. Did you have your eyes opened in new ways? Did you see with new eyes as you began to coach more regularly after having written about the game for so long or not?
No, I think so. I think, you know, it's funny because I did start out as a sports writer and I worked as a sports writer for 10 years, but I was covering baseball. I was covering basketball, two sports that I've always loved. And I think it was no accident that I ended up doing both because I think part of the problem I had was I would covering them. And when you're a writer, you're a little bit of a skeptic, a second guesser. And I
you want to know like, hey, what's it really like? You know, here I am criticizing this coach or this team for doing dumb things in baseball or dumb things on the basketball court. You know, why don't I put myself on the line? And I was like, yeah, I'd rather do it than comment on it. And it just worked out that I was able to get a job in baseball and put some of
beliefs that I have into practice and coach basketball and test my beliefs there and realize like, oh, this is why it's a lot harder than you think to do these things, but also in some ways to prove that the things that I believed in do work. And I think with baseball, especially just
as i alluded to before when you and i were into bill james and the analytics well every team has embraced those you know more than we could have ever imagined when when we were younger yeah and i mean and one of the things i've always enjoyed talking about with you and we're going to do it a little bit now but you know the comparative sports observations because you have coached many sports you've played mainstream you're an avid tennis player you've played and coached many sports
There's a tendency to group sports together and say sports works like this. You know, you either get knocked down and get yourself back up for the win. We try to use aphorisms and statements that work across sports and no doubt ones that are about mindset probably make some sense. But I'm wondering, just as we close up Momentum,
It does strike me that kind of a live action game like basketball would be perceived to have more momentum. The word would be used more for basketball than, let's say, baseball, a sport that you dearly love. I mean, there is some sense of momentum in baseball, but that pitch by pitch rhythm and the pauses in the game seem to fight back against momentum.
the idea of real exciting momentum in baseball. Any thoughts outside of those sports in terms of sports most lending themselves to misleading fans and other observers who are seeing too much momentum in that other sport?
It's funny because you talk about momentum in baseball. And I remember there's a famous quote, like momentum is tomorrow's starting pitcher, probably. And we see that in baseball all the time, right? When a team loses a tough game in the ninth inning, it's like, and that doesn't just hurt you tonight. That's going to carry over to the next game. And again, studies have shown, no, no, no.
Nope, it doesn't. You know, it's all about like the next guy that's out there, the next moment. And yeah, that's all momentum is. It's like the next play that you make. So other sports, it's funny because I'm,
It was your brother when I think he might have been coaching girls basketball before I was coaching boys basketball. And he was coaching at a very low level. And whether it was girls or boys, he said, you know what the key is? If you score first and put on your press, it's almost like the other team can't get the ball up the court. And so it's whichever team scores first and gets in the press. But of course, if one team breaks the press, finally, and gets a basket and puts on their press, it changes. So I think about that. But you know, it's funny. Lacrosse seems to have...
away about that like a sort of momentum and I think lacrosse is such a strange sport in terms of
how it's scored. We know in baseball and hockey and even football, even though they inflate the scoring by giving it seven for a score when really it's three to two, three touchdowns to two, 21 to 14. But a score means so much, so much. Where in basketball, it's like, well, teams score 100 points, 80 points. And it's more about the pattern of how they score. Well, I always think lacrosse is stuck in the middle because lacrosse is like 12 to seven.
It's like that goal was big, but it wasn't that big. It wasn't hockey big. It wasn't touchdown big, but it still was big. But here came four in a row. So maybe lacrosse has some of that. Even in other sports, you know, maybe it's more obvious that the momentum can change because you just scored a touchdown and now you kick off and now they have the ball. Well, is your momentum really going to carry over to your defense when your defense teams? Yeah.
And just to be clear to all our listeners, Momentum, every time I've used it in this podcast, is in air quotes throughout the written transcript of this podcast one day. Well, thank you for that, Kimmel. Momentum and pickleball, by the way? Pickleball. Sure. Well, you know, it's funny, those sports that you have to win serve to score.
Good point. Yeah. Volleyball. Right. Or that used to be how it was anyway. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's, it's like, I think that contributes almost to the momentum because, you know, a team can go on a five point run where they have this serve and it feels like just like, oh my gosh, you know, as opposed to the alternating of winning serves and no one scoring for a while.
All right. So I think we did a pretty good job taking down momentum or at least encouraging everybody listening to ask twice. Think twice about it and see if you can ever find an announcer saying it appears that they are presently losing the momentum we talked about. All right. Let's move on to number two. Kimball rule breaker ism in sports. Number two. What do you got queued up?
All right. This one, you know, I've argued this one all my life and I believe it, but it's very hard to prove in some sort of empirical way. But the quarterback is the most overrated position in sport. He gets so much credit in sport. And I have a good friend who's a very smart guy who says, no, it's the opposite. It's the most important sport position in sport. I'm like,
It might be important, but it gets so overrated in terms of its importance. Everyone thinks it's one guy out there facing the other guy. Oh, that's going to be Brady versus Russell Wilson. And football, especially having coached it a little bit. And one of the reasons I coached it was again to find out about this mysterious sport. And it's 11 on 11.
And to me, it's the ultimate team game because if your guard screws up, your quarterback's face down in the dirt. And any one of those other 10 guys can screw up his job and your quarterback looks terrible. And I always like to say every quarterback looks great until he's under siege. And every quarterback under siege looks terrible. And I know people point to Tom Brady and Pat Mahomes, but even Pat Mahomes in the Super Bowls where he hasn't had the power
the pass protection can look running around for his life. I always think of Trevor Lawrence when he was in college and everyone thought he was just unstoppable. And then he got into like the championship game and all of a sudden his line was overwhelmed and he was running around looking terrible, throwing the ball around all over the place. And I just say like, yeah. And if,
Quarterback without a line is going to look like garbage. And I know Brady won a lot of Super Bowls, but he happened to have good teammates around him. And now maybe he is better than every other quarterback, but he's not as much better as people think by giving him all the praise, you know, that he had, he didn't do it alone. And of course I have argued this one. And every time a non-descript or non-famous quarterback is
wins the Super Bowl, I'm like, there you go. Mark Rippin or Jalen Hurts, no one's saying he was the best quarterback in the world. And Nick Foles, a guy that had trouble getting a job, and then he played one of the best games ever. So I am there on that, but it's a tough one to argue with people because they love them some quarterbacks.
You know, it's so compelling, I think, for the media, and I don't mean to bash the media too much this week, but it's not just the media. It's the television ads. It's the producers.
Mahomes versus Josh Allen coming up this Sunday. And literally, Mahomes never actually is on the field or faces off against Josh Allen. Anyway, it's like a prize fighter fight where only one boxer's ever in the ring, and they're kind of strutting around. And we're like, look at Mahomes. Wow. Mahomes versus Josh Allen. Where's Josh Allen? Mahomes leaves the ring. Josh Allen. So it is almost inevitable. It's just...
And producers and hype masters and the people who want us to watch things, they can't not do that.
And it's, and it's cause it's all, we really know how to watch or, you know, it's, it's, it's easier to see what the quarterback does. You don't have the camera on the guard all game long. You don't even know what's going on with a lot of the plays and the positions. And, and so it's hard to tell even what's happening out there. And, and so I think it's easy to see when a guy throws interception or throws a touchdown pass, you know? So it's just part of,
how the game is produced and brought to us, but it, it definitely is one that drives me crazy. And, and I find myself loving to root for a team with, without a quarterback, you know, with a no name quarterback with the third string quarterback, and they just beat the team with the best quarterback in football. And, you know, you mentioned football, which to me is,
The sports that I watch, I think of it as the ultimate team game. And maybe it's because there are more people on the field than, let's say, basketball or hockey. And people are very specialized, and you absolutely have to rely on the person to your left and right to have a successful play. But also part of the team, Kimball, and I wanted to go this direction now, is the coach, the offensive coordinator who's calling the plays, or the head coach,
The design and execution and choice of each of the plays is, I mean, that happens some in basketball. It happens some in hockey, not so much in baseball. But in football, it's such a profound part of it. And that's why, at least from my standpoint as a longtime sports fan, I've always said it's the coaches who keep winning and coming back every year. The superior coaches are the more sustainable competitive advantage.
than the quarterbacks. Now, I realize a lot of people would say, Tom Brady, Tom Brady, Tom Brady, and there are other examples too, as you pointed out. But I wanted you to speak briefly just to the dynamic of how much the coach matters in football, maybe versus baseball.
Oh, it's huge, as you point out. And it's funny because just a small anecdote, like I am from New York. So, and I've lived in New England for a lot of my life, maybe more of my life than I haven't. And I've had to be around New England sports fans and teams. And as a New Yorker, it's my duty to hate them. And I've had to live through the Brady Belichick years and had to test Belichick because he left my Jets famously to go to the Patriots.
And so I found myself when the Brady-Belichick split happened, I thought, oh my gosh, am I going to have to root for Bill Belichick? Because I have to pick the coach instead of the quarterback here. And I can't have Brady succeed without Belichick and Belichick not succeed without Brady. And of course that backfired. I mean, Brady won the Super Bowl. He's got all the bragging rights.
Belichick has had, you know, now has to go to college football and had a rough last few years without Brady. So if that's, you know,
Someone's argument, it's hard. It's very anecdotal, obviously, but I can't fight that. But you're absolutely right. And especially when you coach football, it's not just the play calling. The play calling is huge because you really have to make a huge decision. And it's not just run or throw, but where do you run? What kind of run? And it makes such a difference. And I know coaches must live and die with like,
Their thought famously, you know, Pete Carroll and the Seahawks not giving the ball to Marshawn Lynch, you know, one more time on the goal line instead of throwing the interception. But in practice, but again, when you coach, you realize,
As a coach, 95% of what you do before the game is what's more important than what you do in the game. You can call a timeout, which everyone thinks is the key to coaching, but it's like, no. The key to coaching is teaching your guard how to pull properly in his footwork and how to hit the guy and how to tackle. It's just amazing all the work that goes into a football program and building a football program and creating these guys. And then just...
as you said, it can go on the field and so much can go right or wrong based on your decision. I agree. I think...
It's funny because I think I've always admired coaches and followed coaches more in sports more than I have athletes. Yeah. And that is itself very contrarian. Obviously, most of us are idolizing the athletes and, you know, especially starting as kids. We don't really think so much about the coaches. They're some old guy usually. But, you know, I appreciate that point, Kimball. And I'm just wondering the implications of what you're saying, that the quarterback is the single most overrated position in all of sport.
So I think what you're saying, if we're trying to translate this, like if we're trying to moneyball it, if we're going in, let's say we acquire your jets. You and I somehow hit it huge on the stock market. We buy the jets together. How are you running the jets differently, thinking in part salaries or allocations than how everybody else seems to be running their teams? Well, we're a great example of this.
this problem, you know, because the Jets, I don't know how many times in the last 20 years, 30 years, the Jets have traded up in the draft for their next quarterback hope, you know, and having to backfire on them or they've gone out and acquired Brett Favre or Aaron Rodgers, the big name quarterback that would,
two of the greats, the all-time greats, who each have only won one Super Bowl each, by the way, with all their playing time and all their accolades, and then seeing that backfire. So yes, if I ran the Jets, I'd say, you know what we're not going to do? We're not going to spend big money on a quarterback. We're not going to trade up to draft a quarterback. We want a good quarterback, but you know what we also want? We want a good line. We want good defense. We want good everything. So let's make prudent decisions on all those. And what I would probably do is,
is I'm going to sign. I think the one thing you want in a quarterback is don't screw it up. Don't take all our hard work and just throw the ball away. And I think sometimes young quarterbacks, the young hopes, do that. You know, it's just inexperience and they're more likely to throw that giant interception, which, you know, if you talk about analytics, an interception has that, like,
amazing negative value on your chance of winning a game. And so I'd say like, give me safety, Tom, and just say, go out there and just do a good workmanlike job. I know you have no one respects you. You've been in the league 10 years. You never made any money. No one cares. Give me that guy. And I'm going to build this great team around you. That's what I would try and do. I'm inspired. You've inspired me with your mini speech.
All right. Before we leave football, let me just briefly ask you, a lot of people were predicting some years ago that concussions were just going to ruin the sport and it was going to disappear. Kids were going to stop playing it, et cetera. I'm really not there at the youth league level. And I know you're not coaching football right now, but you're a longtime fan observer and journalist. Any thoughts about the state of head injuries and how it
might change or might never change? Are we all okay with it? Where are we here in 2025? Oh, well, you know, the sports at that level are very focused on headache injuries and especially in a lot of sports where you don't get a lot of headache injuries. And if you have a player that does get a concussion, he's out for a while and there's lots of concussion protocol.
And, you know, that's not the worst thing. It's not the best thing for a coach who's trying to get his kids back on the field and for the player that has to sit out. But, you know, they're very aware of it. And it is interesting because I do think there are hotbeds where football is still popular, but definitely it's harder and harder to field a high school football team. It's harder and harder to get parents to let their players play multiple sports, especially if one of those is football and it's not their first sport.
And I do wonder if one day it's going to go, say, dry up. And they're going to be like, we don't have enough players out there to choose from. But we can't leave football without me giving you some credit
And telling me that just about every time I watch a football game and part of my being a contrarian is I'm always thinking about how we can improve the rules in football and any sport I watch. And how there's a rule that can just make the game so disappointing. You know, we're playing this great game and now there's a pass interference call and it's 50 yards downfield and it's so...
It's so hard to tell what happened. The two guys are like slapping each other with their hands and they caught on the defensive back and it's 50 yards. And I'm like 50 yards. You just gave him five holding penalties. You just gave him 10 illegal procedures, 10 offsides. So I've always said like,
We've got to somehow reduce the penalty there. So like, it's just a clear call. And maybe if like lately you just wrestle a guy to the ground when the ball is coming in, it's so obvious you can give max. But I always said like half the distance, you know, split the baby. But the point I wanted to make was,
And football has so many of these. It's so frustrating to watch the little things that go wrong. And it was you, Dave Gardner, who said, just let them wrestle. Just let them play. And in other sports, I disagree. Basketball should not turn into a wrestling match. But football is mano a mano. Football is about toughness. And you can still outplay.
Run your opponent so he can never catch you so he can wrestle you to the ground But just let anything go and I think about though It's not like why don't we just let the defensive back just if he wants to grab that wide receiver and throw him to the ground Yeah, or if an offensive guard wants to hold them great because the defensive guys like to throw them away You know and do all this stuff and maybe you don't allow kicks to the groin or head slaps or
or pokes in the eye, but almost anything else goes. And I really think it would be a better sport because we wouldn't have like the game tipping on like, Ooh, I think he touched him a little bit there. And that's for 50 yard penalty.
It also slows down the game as we watch the instant replay eight times. But thank you, Kimball. I appreciate that. Yeah, I think that fewer rules is always better and less influenced by referees, even though as a contrarian myself, I like to celebrate the referees. Like I'm used to watching youth sports. I'll never forget a moment in Little League where one of the parents on the other team was bad mouthing the umpire, who I think was a dad on our team. And he turned around. He said, you know, ma'am,
We actually have a real shortage of umpires in this league. Not many parents have volunteered for this. We would love to have your help. That's great. I mean, it is great. And so, yeah, so more power to the referees a little bit more often. A great moment happened in the Minnesota Twins game a few weeks ago for the second time in recorded baseball history. They started keeping these numbers in 2015, I think, Kimball.
An umpire called every single ball and strike correctly. Wow. And, again, it's only happened twice in all recorded Major League Baseball games. And I was watching it. There were 168 pitches in total between both teams. Of course, some of the pitches were hit, so those aren't being called by the umpire. And the umpire was 168 for 168. That little white rectangle that we all watch and wonder, why don't they, like –
the alien visiting from outer space, watching baseball, seeing a ball outside the white box and it gets called a strike. If I'm that alien, I'm like, why did that happen? Like we have technology. Why are we doing that anyway? Well, no, stick to that because I was going to say before you even said that you must be in favor of ABS and, and,
So automatic ball strike system, which is you can use technology to call balls and strikes. And they've experimented within a lot of games I've seen because I am a baseball scout and I go to a lot of minor league parts and that's where they've done the experimentation. And I've seen it up close and personal, whereas other people haven't. This spring training, Major League Baseball used it some, so I think some people finally got to see it live or on TV that never went to a minor league game. But Dave, it's amazing. And one of the things that I think they've talked about just having the ABS system
Do all the calls for balls and strikes. But an interesting compromise, which I actually think makes a lot of sense and has worked, is to give a team three challenges. And unlike challenge in other sports, these challenges happen fast. And so you're at a game. And the player, unlike...
In baseball, let me just say, in baseball, I am all for the George Brett rule on any instant replay. If you have to look at a replay yourself to tell them to look at the replay, no. If you're not running out of the dugout like George Brett in the Pine Terns, you don't get the challenge. It's got to be immediate like, whoa, you missed that, buddy. You know? So...
and the balls and strikes, you have to signal right away that you're challenging. And it goes right up on the scoreboard and you see, and it's amazing because it proves how good the umpires are because when they're wrong, they're wrong by an inch. It's like, good luck with that. And if you write on the challenge, you get the challenge again as many times as you're right. And what that does is going back to our youth, Eric Gregg,
Levon Hernandez, Atlanta Braves, one of the worst officiated games ever when he was calling strikes like a foot or two outside the zone and Atlanta Braves season went down the drain and their dynasty in many ways.
And if an umpire is wrong and you challenge it and he sees he's wrong, he's not going to keep calling that. Whereas like the whole thing of like, well, now he's established that is the zone. He's established that you can get three inches on the corner. It is so good. It is so effective. It is so quick. Wow. And hopefully it's coming. I have not seen that in play. But again, talking to a major league baseball scout, you see stuff before the rest of us. That's pretty cool, Kimball.
Yeah, no, it's great. All right, well, let's queue up number three before we do. I just want to mention you can start your day with The Motley Fool's free daily market email newsletter. Yes, all those volatile days we're experiencing from one day to the next in the markets. It's our breakfast news. Daily expert market analysis and company updates sent straight to your inbox every weekday at 730 a.m. Eastern. Sign up at www.fool.com slash breakfast news.
All right, Kimball, number three. All right. So this one, if you excuse me, it's not so much like the others. This is something that I think needs to happen. Okay. And this goes to basketball. And I've had some success. You know, I've been a contrarian for a long time, and it goes back to my undergraduate days at UNC, when I swear for an English class, and I had a college basketball fan as a teacher, I wrote about the NBA and its illegal defense rules. Okay.
And at the time, the NBA was just unwatchable because they didn't want teams to play zone. So they had all these rules about how you had to guard your man. So teams would literally take two of their players and put them in half court. And two defensive players would have to go stand there with them. Otherwise, they were in a legal defense violation. And then they play three on three. And it's like, you have the best players in the world and they can't all play. And so I was trying to solve that problem. And I wrote an essay.
And it was basically saying that the new rule should be you can't stay in the lane for three seconds. Now, that's not that controversial because the offense, you know, for as long as they've had the lane, has not been allowed to spend three seconds or more in the lane. Supposedly. Supposedly, Kimmel. I'll say they almost never call it these. They rarely call it. That's true. And that's too bad. And you love refs, but they rarely call it. But I said, don't let the defense stand then either.
Like, you know, they can be in there for three seconds. They can... If obviously an offensive player goes in there, they can be in there. And then it'll be offensive three seconds because you're not going to just leave them alone. And then it's going to be on the offense, which maybe then they'll call it when they realize the defense is in there. And basically, the NBA...
has adopted that rule years later. And that's basically their new kind of illegal defense is this idea of you can't be in the lane and you kind of have to be in or out of it. And I was so proud of that. So my next one to help basketball, because basketball was helped by the three-pointer. There's no question that the game was too much of a wrestling match inside and it was too hard to score when you could have these giant behemoths just clogging everything up.
And so the three-pointer came along and it opened up the game, but it's gone too far. And as a lot of people point out, and I don't even know if it's, it's not necessarily a strategic thing or as a coaching thing. I think it's more like,
for the fans because when you watch basketball and you love basketball is you don't want every team to play the same way and unfortunately almost every team now plays the same exact way they put three or four guys around the three-point circle they might set a screen with a high post and they come off and screen and roll and they if you guard if you don't guard the post they'll throw it to him if you do guard him the guard will take it if you come off and help
They'll throw it to the three-point shooter. And it's just become, it's ridiculous. And it's really become annoying to me as a fan of the game. Like, it's just not pleasant to watch. And we have to remember, right, that as much as we love sports, it is entertainment.
It's not you and I going out and playing tennis and no one watching. These high-level sports, they exist because people love to watch them and pay good money to watch them. So there has to be an aesthetic quality to these sports. And basketball is in danger of losing its aesthetic quality at every level even because now it's colleges the same way as the NBA and it's even becoming a little bit that way at the high school level. So my solution to that, and I think in our lifetimes, if we live long enough, Dave, we're going to see this,
is I have suggested the three-point circle should end at the foul line. In other words, the arc goes, but instead of going straight line down to the corner like it does, it kind of goes off and it either cuts straight to the sidelines or angled to the sideline. In other words, you're eliminating the corner three. And if you eliminate the corner three, which in funny ways has always been unfair because it's shortest three,
It's not as long as the regular three-point shot because you can't have it go all the way out to the sidelines. You'd be out of bounds. And so it's an easier shot, but it also makes it so hard to defend because when you coach basketball and realize how much leaving your man and giving help and staying in the middle of the floor and seeing both man and ball and all these things that happen, it's so hard to do when teams spread themselves and can be four or five guys around the three-point circle. You can't really give help. And it leads to just like,
Again, this freer flowing game, but again, what's become a very homogenous game. And I think if we just take away the corner threes, we still have great shooters. We still have a more wide open game, but we bring back a little bit of variety. I think you'll see more teams going into the post more often because right now it doesn't pay to go to the post because as you talked about with like a three point shot being so valuable, you work so hard to get it in there and you get two and you don't get three. Yeah.
And so I think we're going to see that in my lifetime, that they will do something. You can't really move the circle out because...
That's not going to solve the corner problem unless you make the courts bigger, which I just don't think is going to happen. Yeah. What do you think about that? I think it's really interesting. In fact, you're reminding me of we're going to be we're about to play buy, sell or hold to close the show. And I have something in that direction. So I'm going to hold off on that. But Kimmel, as you're talking about, I'm thinking about, you know, traditionalists like there's so much traditionalism, of course. It's the game I played, my kids played, etc.,
I'm wondering how that starts. You just mentioned the new balls and strike system for Major League Baseball that might be implemented in minor leagues, etc. That starts at a lower level. And I'm trying to picture, like, are there –
high school leagues that might start dropping that line down, marking it where you think, et cetera. But then if there are, you start making it so your players aren't ready for the next level. And it's hard to implement something like that. So how do you picture the movie of that actually occurring? It's going to start the highest levels first, I think, or maybe at the college level before the NBA level. It's certainly not going to... The youth level, the reason why it's not as big a factor at the youth level or the lower level basketball is the opposite effect.
The problem with basketball as a sport for kids is you're playing the same game, but the hoop is 10 feet tall. And very rarely... And you're not. Right. And supposedly in Europe, they have shorter hoops and they start teaching their kids on a shorter hoop. And it's actually smart because they develop better form and habits with a more realistic goal, literally. And so...
The lower levels, you have almost the opposite problem. Kids can shoot from outside, and so it's not... Teens then clog the paint anyway, and so it's not a problem. But I do think at the college level where they've always been much more concerned about the aesthetic and...
and it's always been a much more beautiful game to me than the NBA game. They will be the ones to realize maybe we need to tweak this. It's not going to happen tomorrow, but I do think it's going to happen. I really do. I just feel it. And I thought of this myself, but I must admit now I have seen other people writing similar things and talking about similar things. So I just, I have a, it's
It's a gut feel that it's going to happen, and I think it will. Well, you might be the OG, but it's awfully good to have people backing you up there because that's the way movements occur and rules change. And TV ratings. I don't watch the NBA. I love college basketball so much. I watch so much college basketball.
I don't care and never have about the NBA. Well, I should say I did care up until maybe the age of 16 or so. But I agree. College is so much more interesting. So maybe that samey aspect of NBA ball, TV ratings start to decline, fan interest, that would be the clear little new fire that ignites some change that some of the money starts drying up because people aren't really that compelled by it.
Well, the NBA has improved its product, I think, and partly because of what I talked about for the defensive three seconds rule. Now with the three-pointer, it rarely happens because it's the last thing people want to do. And so they are more free-flowing. I think there it might be more the shot clock. Like, you know, the irony of you're trying to make it a faster game, but it's in fact slower because...
You know, it's more frantic and it's not as pleasant to watch because it's like you always have to be like quickly getting into it more quickly than you should instead of like setting up a pattern, you know, and which we see in college basketball. There's a nice, beautiful ballet to a pattern to a good college basketball game. Yeah.
All right. Well, has Kimball opened your eyes to anything this week or maybe even slightly upset you at some point? Great. That's why I do a mailbag at the end of every month. The Rule Breaker Investing Mailbag is next week, April 30th.
Write in with a question, a thought, or a challenge, or a poem. We love reading and sharing out your feedback. Our email address is rbiatfool.com. That's rbiatfool.com. You can tweet us at RBIPodcast on TwitterX. All right, Kimball, you have graciously consented to play our game Buy, Sell, or Hold. I've got five for you. Kind of a lightning round. You ready? Yep, I think so. These are not stocks, but if they were stocks, would you be buying, selling, or holding, and why?
Let's kick it off. Number one with buy, sell, or hold the four-point shot in the NBA. Because if we're already shooting from the logo, why not just reward it from half court? Sell, no, no, don't want that, no.
I love it. Why not? Come on. You can't sell that. We've already addressed this. My problem will solve the problem which you're talking about. I think you're going to make it worse with the four-point shot. Now we're just going to go out further and jack up shots. And talking about use, they're already jacking up three-point shots because they can make – imagine the logo on the floor. I can't wait for it. The line goes right across the court. It's the four. All right, Sal. Please, no. Let's move on to number two.
Caitlin Clark as a billion dollar brand, a cultural phenomenon on and off the court, but is the hype sustainable by seller hold, not just Caitlin Clark, but as a billion dollar brand. I'm going to hold, I guess, because, you know, I'm glad she exists. I'm glad it's really been made more popular, but I think there's a negative aspect to it. I think, uh,
Well, I'll say it because I've said it on my pod. I think there's something a little off about Caitlyn Clark. It's a little Dorothy Hamill-esque that people think she's just America's sweetheart. And in a way, to be such a good competitor, she's got to be a little ruthless. And so maybe when they see that she can be a little tough, it won't be such a squeaky clean image for her and her brand won't be as popular as it's been. All right. We'll hold that. Let's move on to number three.
That popular fan-driven phenomenon rising from your seat briefly in rhythm with those around you and then sitting back down again over and over, creating a visual undulation around the Coliseum. Kimball, buy, sell, or hold the wave? Wow, I love that you're giving me a forum for some of my pet peeves. No. Sell that fan thing. But I'll tell you what. If you could police it and say, you're allowed to do the wave between innings,
Between innings is a great time to do the wave. And this is like my problem in baseball. I want there to be an announcement every baseball game like, hey, there's like 18 natural breaks in this game. Move then. Get up from your seat. Get back to your seat then. Don't do it during the game. But if you go to a major league game or minor league game, it's the opposite. I think because of all the noise they play between innings.
fans think nothing's going on during the game when they're watching a slow baseball game and they get a bend. So yes, if you went to it during breaks during the game. But I'm trying to figure out where is the hate? Like why? What is bad or wrong about the way it's happening? We've come to teach.
the game. I came to see the game. I don't want people standing up in front of me. And especially as a scout, I'm sitting there often with stuff in my lap, writing stuff down, and they're waving. It's like, no, do this between innings. All right, let's stick with baseball for number four, Kim. We'll buy, sell, or hold baseball's pitch clock, making it to Little League, speeding up America's pastime, even for 11-year-olds.
Informally, maybe. I'll say it can't be a strict pitch clock. You don't want to do that to a kid. I'm always... Baseball, one of the reasons I love baseball players and admire them is because I can't believe they can do what I do. I can't perform under pressure. And to be anyone, baseball...
focus on each individual is so high that poor kid in little league standing on the mound you know it's easy to be lost in a basketball floor in a football game but when you're the kid on the mound or even the balls hit you in left field there's so much pressure we don't need to up that at all but yeah if it's a slow paced game maybe maybe informally the umpire is allowed to stay like hey you know just like in in in football low levels they you know
they kind of it was ridiculous coaching like freshman football you could you could kill a quarter with the drive because they did not enforce like the play clock you could take forever to get your play in and out and the clock is just running all right well you know you even start sounding like a seller at first but i think i did hear a bite in there somewhere kibble so thank you i don't know what hold means because we don't have it what how am i holding holding you're like i
Can't tell. I don't know. Maybe. Actually, I think that was kind of a hold because I agree. It may put too much pressure on the poor 11-year-old kid who held it a little too long. Ball four. He didn't even throw it. He walks in the losing run. Like, that will scar someone literally for life. So maybe we shouldn't be too intense, but maybe we could speed things up. I don't know. Only six innings in the Little League. Okay. Last one. Got to end it here. You'll understand why very shortly because –
It's a phenomenon. Kimball Crosley, buy, sell, or hold? Taylor Swift in the owner's box. Wow, you've given me a tough one. I'm going to say hold. I mean, yeah, like I have no real problem with it. I don't know. I don't think we need to focus on it so much, but I can't say like, oh, you know, Travis, you can't have your woman there. So I'm going to say hold on that. Yeah.
All right. We'll close with a hold. Some nice holding going on in that buy-sell. I think it's the nature of what I brought you. And I didn't know I was touching off your pet peeve around the wave, which is something I'll delight in afterwards thinking back on that. It's more about where it's moving between innings than the hold. I got it. Kimball Crosley, thank you for joining us and for fearlessly challenging the playbook.
Great stories, great insights, whether you're on the field or coaching or just like me, sitting in front of your TV with a remote control in your hand. Sports is such a big part of American culture, really always has been, continues to be, I think, a bigger business than ever it was before. So it's such a delight to be with a fellow Rule Breaker who helps us see things not just differently, but I'm going to say a little bit better.
Kimball, thanks for joining us. My pleasure. Kimball Crosley can be heard as a regular on 3 Point Range, where he throws down other rule breakerisms every few weeks or so. You can find that where you find podcasts. 3 Point Range. Thanks, Kimball. Fool on. As always, people on this program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, and The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against. So don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear.
Learn more about Rule Breaker Investing at rbi.fool.com.