Regarding Andy’s spot-on post yesterday about penalty kicks: I have longed thought soccer is the most flawed of sports because so much hinges–often the entire game–on an event outside the course of the normal action, the penalty kick. This puts a premium on the inherently subjective calls of the referee and also creates an incentive for the ridiculous faking of being tripped, injured etc. (This doesn’t mean soccer can’t be enjoyable, just that it has this impurity.) Hockey suffers from the same problem, although not as starkly. Basketball too is flawed in a somewhat similar way. Football isn’t entirely clean either, since pass interference and roughing calls loom so large. Baseball is much cleaner. The umpiring brings an element of subjectivity, of course, but otherwise the game has simple rules and the action always involves a pitcher throwing to a batter and no special action outside of that framework (imagine breaking a tie with a home-run contest). And I suppose by these standards golf is the purest of all major sports.

UPDATE: An e-mail: Hi Rich, I’m sure someone has pinged you by now: golf is a game, not a sport. That’s why golf appears “pure.” You can not affect your opponent(s) outcome, so there is little opportunity for infraction. Apart from this nit I think your point is accurate.

Another e-mail:

…your post on baseball as a “pure sport” is ridiculous. Baseball has more subjectivity than almost any sport besides ice-skating and gymnastics. I love baseball, but it is certainly subjective. Why do you think there are so many memorable umpire/ manager confrontations? Here is a hint, it is not because there isn’t subjectivity in the sport. In fact, the subjectivity in baseball is so prevalent that announcers feel the need to state how an umpire is calling a game: “he is giving Maddox the outside of the plate tonight?” Or, “that is a strike on everyone but Tony Gwynn, Wade Boggs and ________ [fill in the blank with any hitter with a “good eye”]?”