Sudden Death Dodgeball

“Ladies and gentlemen, prepare to witness the greatest happening in sport: sudden-death dodgeball.”

“Pepper needs new shorts!”

Many of you will recognize this dialogue from the hilarious movie Dodgeball. The two announcers Cotton and Pepper have just become enormously excited about the events immediately to follow, where the next person to be hit with a ball loses. In sports, as mentioned in the quote above, this type of ending to a competition is called sudden death. In popular American sports only one sport, hockey, truly has a sudden death. We have been witness to the greatness of this spectacle many times during the NHL playoffs and I hope we will get to see more because, as Cotton says, it is the greatest happening in sport. But another sport, baseball, although different in its formation of it, also has a sudden death, and this is one of the places baseball is superior to soccer, football and basketball.

In basketball, football and soccer, there is a set time limit to the competition, when the end of the game comes around the game is most likely already decided. If it is not however, there can be buzzer beaters, hail-marys, and last second comebacks, but each of these occurrences is not sudden death. Now I do know that in the NFL there are sudden death overtime rules for the regular season and modified sudden death rules for the playoffs. However, as possessions in football are very time consuming, and as the sudden death rules for the regular season greatly favor whoever wins the coin toss, this sudden death cannot be put in the same category as what Cotton was referring to. A first person to score all-out battle, which can be decided in mere moments. Additionally in football games that go to sudden death, there is still the possibility of the game ending in a tie, which we all know is not exciting at all. I also know soccer used to have a golden goal rule which was sudden death but hasn’t been in place for years now. As is no sport’s end game scenarios are sudden death excitement like hockey and baseball.

Now some of you may be asking how baseball has a sudden death given that both teams cannot score at the same time and baseball is possibly the slowest of all major sports. But look at this scenario. Game 7 of the World Series, one out, bases loaded, game tied 2-2, Mariano Rivera on the mound in the bottom of the ninth. Infield is in; any score will win the game. Any sac fly, suicide squeeze, home run, single or even a fielder’s choice will end the game. This is sudden, this is death. Both teams have had equal opportunity, unlike the overtime rules in football, the game doesn’t have to end here, unlike basketball, and the game cant end in a tie with nothing close to a score happening, unlike soccer. Baseball’s sudden death, laid out for you. Now this is just an extreme situation of sudden death, just like a 5 on 3 power play, in hockey overtime would be extreme, but any bottom of the ninth inning where the game is tied, is a sudden death scenario. It’s called a walk-off but really it should be called a sudden death winner. The bottom of the ninth with the game tied is just like when Peter Lefleur has yet to throw his ball, after White Goodman has already missed. The greatest happening in sports; the walk off, Hockey overtime, sudden death dodgeball, and the 2001 World Series Game seven with Luis Gonzalez killing the Yankees suddenly.

-David Ringold