Breaking the Rules of Sports

In this episode of Rule Breaker Investing, Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner talks with Kimball Crossley, a sportswriter and podcaster who's been a Major League Baseball scout since 1999.

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This video was recorded on April 23, 2025

David Gardner: 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 35'3"? 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 post. 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 Crossley, 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 punch line and the mid range jump shot punch line 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.

The world of sports has as much conventional wisdom wrapped in all around it as the World of money and Investing. As the Micah 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. 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. 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 1967-1976. 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 Jabar. 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 calling 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 Crossley, 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 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. Kimball is 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 Mac Greer. Mac and I are going to relisten 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. 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. 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. What's true in baseball is truer in investing, where the contrast is even sharper." 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. Think about it of all books, a great investment book literally pays for itself. Should anyway. To everyone who's already pre ordered thanks, that means a lot to me. Kimball Crossley. Welcome.

Kimball Crossley: Thank you. It's great to be here.

David Gardner: Kimball, you've brought along several examples we're going to go through this week, conventional wisdom and sports that you've observed that likely many of us, Kimball have observed, and you are you're like, no, that's wrong. They're not doing it right. Whether we're talking about the athletes, the coaches or the media who cover them, it's not limited to anyone's sports. 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 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 rot 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?

Kimball Crossley: Well, it's interesting. That's a great example. When I was younger 30 or 40 years ago, I read the hidden game of baseball, which tried to prove some of these points. Then I found the hidden game of football, which had some of those. I believe one of the things in there was, you should almost never punt because giving up the football anywhere is worse than just taking your best chance. It is interesting that years and years later, finally, we're seeing it, but we're seeing a lot of teams are still pushing back. A lot of analysts or pundits, I should say, are pushing back on that. I think it's funny ever the contrarian I will almost push back on that myself because I do coach. I'm going to mention your cold open where you talked about how we realized that the three pointer is much more valuable than the mid range jump shot. But just like going for it in football on and down, when you're coaching, it's not so much the fear of being wrong and 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 do. 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. They're also going to do a good job of now they realize taking away the inside shot and the layup and the dunk. It's funny when I coach, one of the things I coach my team to be good at is the mid range shot.

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. I want to be good at that when we have to get it. I noticed that a couple of years ago, I think that in the NBA finals, it came down to one mid range jumper as another after another because both teams were taking away the two things yeah, the teams want me to do. In football, you might say, 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. We're better off kicking the ball away, and maybe our defense can make something happen. Of course, it all goes to time and score and things like that. But, it's just time is it's been funny to watch over our lifetimes, Dave, we've talked about this when we first met about a lot of baseball analytics. We've seen teams embracing them things that we were like running around, go like, oh, my gosh, why don't you do this? Why don't you realize this? Just like your example, the home run. 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.

David Gardner: Well, we're going to talk some about Major League baseball coming up I know. 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.

Kimball Crossley: This one is that momentum is not a real phenomenon. It's not a reliable phenomenon. Of course, we hear it every sports broadcast, every game we watch, and it's like they've got the momentum now. What I like to say is, you know what? If momentum existed in sports, the team that scored first would win every time. It's like they've got the momentum. What good is momentum if it could change at any time? That doesn't mean you had it. It's like they've got the momentum. Well, now they don't. I just think 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. Just because it's gone up 10 days in a row doesn't mean it's gonna go up at 11th. In fact, the opposite is true.

David Gardner: It occurs to me, Kimball, the line we never hear because you're right. Announcers are always referencing the momentum. What we never hear is they're losing the momentum or their momentum is switching. Those are lines I literally, and I have watched thousands of hours of sports, I'm not sure I've even ever heard a main line announcer say something like that. It's always just recognizing as you just said, 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 because I imagine in basketball, I'm thinking about a sport where people "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?

Kimball Crossley: No, I have seen studies about the hot hand, and in fact, the studies have pretty much shown it doesn't exist. It makes sense, because it would be the same idea like you're hot until you're not. When you say, 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. It's funny because I do still coach. I coach at that high school level and and have for the last 30 years at one level or another. 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 time out in basketball? I said, well, there's lots of times you call a timeout, and it doesn't change the momentum. We think it does, but sometimes. But when I call time out, 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.

David Gardner: 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?

Kimball Crossley: I've called the time out to say, you know what? They scored 10 points in a row because we didn't box out, because we didn't deny the post or because we keep turning the ball over. It's usually to fix something real. It's funny because I do think that as we talked about in the pod, confidence and momentum could be closely aligned. I do think confidence is definitely a factor in sports. A lot of times you call the time out to change the confidence level of your team. Say, 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. 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 to him confidence. 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. I play individual sports, too, and I'm always trying to boost my own confidence when I've got a non hot hand, a cold hand. The same things happen in sports, but I don't think it's a real thing the way announcers talk about it.

David Gardner: 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.

Kimball Crossley: 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, I heard him say something like, let's change the momentum. I'm like, Coach, how do you want to do that? Shall we? It's like every team says we want to get off to a good start. Yeah, of course. You don't say let's start slow. Makes no sense.

David Gardner: 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?

Kimball Crossley: Yes. Right in Manhattan.

David Gardner: How long have you been in Providence?

Kimball Crossley: 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.

David Gardner: I remember you writing for your local newspaper, both, I think, in Massachusetts for a while and then also over in Providence. Yet, you're talking now about your many coaching experiences. 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?

Kimball Crossley: No, I think so. I think it's funny because I did start out as a sports writer and have worked as a sports writer for 10 years, but I was covering baseball, I was covering basketball, two sports that I've always loved. 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. When you're a writer, you're a little bit of a skeptic, a second guesser and you want to know, hey, what's it really like? Here I am criticizing this coach or this team for doing dumb things in baseball or dumb things on the basketball court. Why am I put myself on the line? I was like, yeah, I'd rather do then comment on it, and it just worked out that I was able to get a job in baseball and put some beliefs that I have into practice and coach basketball and test my beliefs there and realize 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. 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, more than we could have ever imagined when we were younger.

David Gardner: Yeah. One of the things I've always enjoyed talking about with you, and we're going to do it a little bit now, but the comparative sports observations, because you have coached many sports, you've played many strokes. 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 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 makes some sense. But I'm wondering, just as we close up momentum, it does strike me that 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. 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 the idea of real exciting momentum in baseball.

David Gardner: 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?

Kimball Crossley: It's funny because you talk about momentum in baseball. I remember there's a famous quote, Momentum is tomorrow's starting pitcher. [laughs] We see that in baseball all the time. When a team loses a tough game in the ninth, they like, and everybody always say, and that doesn't just hurt you tonight, that's going to carry over to the next game.[laughs] Again, studies have shown no, it doesn't. It's all about the next guy that's out there the next moment. That's all momentum is. It's the next play that you make. Other sports, it's funny because 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. 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. It's whichever team scores first and gets in the press, but, of course, if one team breaks the press, finally gets a basket, and puts on their press, it changes.

I think about that, but it's funny lacrosse seems to have a way about that, a momentum. 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 touchdowns to two, 21-14. But a score means 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. Why would you think lacrosse is stuck in the middle? Because lacrosse is 12-7. It's like that goal was big, but it wasn't that big. It wasn't hockey big. It wasn't touchdown big, but still was big, but here came four in a row. So maybe lacrosse has some of that. Even in other sports, 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?

David Gardner: 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 the Kimball momentum and pickle-ball, by the way, pickle-ball.

Kimball Crossley: Sure. Well, it's funny those sports that you have to win serve to score.

David Gardner: Good point. Volleyball? Or that used to be how it was anyway.

Kimball Crossley: I think that contributes almost to the momentum because a team can go on a five point run while they have the serve and it feels like just like, Oh, my gosh. As the alternating of winning serves and no one scoring for a while.

David Gardner: 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. Let's move on to Number two. Kimball, Rule Breakerism in sports Number 2. What you got cued up?

Kimball Crossley: I've argued this one all my life, and I believe it. But it's very hard to prove in some empirical way. But the quarterback is the most overrated physician in sport.

David Gardner: In sport?

Kimball Crossley: In sport. I have a good friend who's very smart guy who says, no, it's opposite. It's the most important position in sport. I'm like it might be important, but it still it gets so overrated in terms of its importance. Everyone thinks it's like one guy out there facing the other guy. Oh, that's going to be Brady versus Russell Wilson and it's like, in 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. It's 11 on 11. To me, it's the ultimate team game, because if your guard screws up, your quarterback's face down in the dirt. Any one of those other 10 guys can screw up his job, and your quarterback looks terrible. I always like to say, every quarterback looks great until he's under siege. Every on under siege looks terrible. [laughs] I know, like, people will point to Tom Brady and Pat Mahomes. But even Pat Mahomes in the Super Bowls, where he hasn't had the pass protection 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. Then he was running around looking terrible, throwing the ball around all over the place. I just say like, any quarterback without a line is going to look like garbage. I know Brady won a lot of Super Bowls, but he happened to have good teammates around him. 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 that he didn't do it alone. Of course, I have argued this one, and every time a non descript or a non famous quarterback wins the Super Bowl, I'm like, there you go. Mark Rypien or Jalen Hurts. No one's saying he was the best quarterback in the world and Nick Foles a guy like, had trouble getting a job, and then he played one of the best games ever. I am there on that, but it's a tough one to argue with people because they love them some quarterbacks.

David Gardner: 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. 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 boxers ever in the ring, and they're strutting around. We're like, look at Mahomes. Wow. Mahomes versus Josh Allen. Where's Josh Allen? Mahomes leaves the ring. Josh Allen. It is almost inevitable. It's just producers and hype masters and the people who want us to watch things. They can't not do that.

Kimball Crossley: It's all we really know how to watch. 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. It's hard to tell even what's happening out there. I think it's easy to see when a guy throws an interception or throws a touchdown pass so it's just part of how the game is produced and brought to us, but it definitely is one that drives me crazy, and I find myself loving to root for a team without a quarterback with a no name quarterback with the third string quarterback, and they just beat the team with the best quarterback in football.

David Gardner: You mentioned football, which to me, the sports that I watch, I think of it as the ultimate team game. Maybe it's because there are more people on the field than, let's say basketball or hockey. People are very specialized and you absolutely have to rely on the person 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. 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, there are other examples, too, as you pointed out. But I want you to speak briefly just to the dynamic of how much the coach matters in football maybe versus baseball.

Kimball Crossley: It's huge, as you point out, and it's funny because just a small anecdote, I am from New York, and I've lived in New England for a lot of my life, maybe more of my life than I haven't. I've had to be around New England sports fans and teams and as a New Yorker, it's my duty to hate them. [laughs] I've had to live through the Brady Belichick years and had to test Belichick cause he left my Jets famously to go to the Patriots. 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. Belichick not succeed without Brady and, of course, that backfired. I mean, Brady won the Super Bowl. He's got all the brand new rights. Belichick has now has to go to college football and had a rough last few years without Brady. If that's someone's argument, it's hard, it's very anecdotal, obviously, but I can't fight that. But you're absolutely right. 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. It's not just run or throw, but where do you run? What kind of run? It makes such a difference. I know coaches must live and die with, their thought. Famously, Pete Carroll and the Seahawks not giving the ball to Marshawn Lynch one more time on the goal line instead of throwing interception. 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 it time out, which everyone thinks is the key to coaching. It's like, no, the key to coaching is like teaching your guard how to pull properly and its 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.

David Gardner: That is itself very contrary. Obviously, most of us are idolizing the athletes, and especially starting as kids, we don't really think so much about the coaches. There's some old guy, usually. But 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. I think what you're saying, if we're trying to translate this. If we're trying to money ball, 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?

Kimball Crossley: Well, we're a great example of this problem 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 and had it backfire on them. Or they've gone out and acquired Brett Favre or Aaron Rodgers, the big name quarterback, two of the greats, the all time greats who each of all only won one Super Bowl each, by the way, with all their playing time and all their accolades and then see not backfire. Yes, if I ran the Jets, I said, 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.

Let's make prudent decisions on all those. What I would probably do 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. I think sometimes young quarterbacks, the young hopes, do that. It's just inexperience, and they're more likely to throw that giant interception, which if you talk about analytics, an interception has to have, amazing negative value on your chance of pinning a game. I 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.

David Gardner: I'm inspired. You've inspired me with your mini speech. 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, etc. 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 OK with it? Where are we here in 2025?

Kimball Crossley: Well the sports at the level are very focused on head injuries and especially in a lot of sports where you don't get a lot of head injuries. If you have a player that does get a concussion, he's out for a while, and there's lots of concussion protocol and any of 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 they're very aware of it. It is interesting because I do think there are hot beds 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. I do wonder if one day it's going to, 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 you 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.

There's a rule that can just make the game so disappointing. We're playing this great game, and now there's a pass interference call, and it's 50 yards downfield, and it's so hard to tell what happened. The two guys are like, slapping each other with their hands, and they called on the defensive back and it's 50 yards. I'm like, 50 yards. You just gave him five holding penalties. You just gave him 10 illegal procedures, 10 offsides. I've always said, we've got to somehow reduce the penalty there. It's just a clear call, and maybe if like, blatantly, you just wrestle a guy to the ground when the ball is coming, it's so obvious, you can give Max. But Id always said, like, half the distance. Split the baby.

David Gardner: Nice.

Kimball Crossley: But the point I wanted to make was football has so many of these. It's so frustrating to watch, like, the little things that go wrong and it was you, David Gardner, who said, just let him wrestle. [laughs] Just let him play. In other sports, I disagree. Like, basketball should not turn into wrestling match. But football is mano a mano. Football is about, toughness and you can still out run your opponent so he can never catch you so he can wrestle you to the ground. But just let anything go. I think about that all the time. Why don't we just let the defensive back if he wants to grab that wide receiver and throw him to the ground or an offensive guard wants to hold him great cause the defensive guys allowed to throw him away and do all that stuff, and maybe you don't allow hicks to the groin or head slaps or pokes in the eye but almost anything else goes, I really think it would be a better sport because we wouldn't have the game tipping on, I think he touched him a little bit there and that's for 50 yard penalty.

David Gardner: It also slows down the game as we watch the Insta Replay eight times. But thank you, Kimball. I appreciate that. 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. 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 badmouthing the umpire who I think was a dad on our team and he turned around and he said 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. [laughs]

Kimball Crossley: That's great.

David Gardner: I mean, it is great. So more power to the referees a little bit more often. A great moment happened in a 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 and umpire called every single ball in strike correctly. 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? We have technology. Why are we doing that? Anyway.

Kimball Crossley: Well, no, stick to that because I was going to say before you even said that, you must be in favor of ABS, Automatic Ball Strike system, which is you can use technology to call balls and strikes. 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 their experimentation, and I've seen it up close and personal, whereas other people have 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 through a Minor League game. But, Dave, it's amazing.

One of the things that I think they've talked about just having the ABS 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. Unlike challenge in other sports, these challenges happen fast. You're at a game, and the player, unlike in, let me just say in baseball, I'm all for the George Brett rule on any instant replay. If you have to look at a replay yourself to tell him to look at the replay, no, if you're not running out of the dugout, like George Brett in the pine tar incident, you don't get the challenge. It's got to be immediate like, you missed that, buddy. On 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. If you're right on the challenge, you get the challenge again as many times as you're right.

What that does is going back to our youth, Eric Gregg, Livan Hernandez, Atlanta Braves, one of the worst officiated games ever when he was called, strikes like a foot or two outside the zone, and Atlanta Braves' season went down the drain and their dynasty in many ways. If an umpire is wrong and you challenge it, and he sees he's wrong, he's not going to keep calling that, whereas 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. Hopefully, it's coming.

David Gardner: 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.

Kimball Crossley: That's great.

David Gardner: Well, let's queue up Number 3. 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 7:30 AM Eastern. Sign up at www.fool.com/breakfastnews. Kimball, Number 3.

Kimball Crossley: This one, if you excuse me, it's not so much like the others. This is something that I think needs to happen. This goes to basketball. I've had some success. 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 legal defense rules. At the time, the NBA was just unwatchable because they didn't want pins to play zone. They had all these rules about how you had to guard your man. 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 legal defense violation. Then they play three-on-three. It's like, you have the best players in the world, and they cannot all play. I was trying to solve that problem. 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, for as long as they've had the lane has not been allowed to stand three seconds or more in the lane.

David Gardner: Supposedly. I say, they almost never call it these days.

Kimball Crossley: They rarely call it. That's true, and that's too bad. You love reefs, but they rarely call it. But I said, don't let the defense stand then, either. They can be in there for three seconds. 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. Basically, the NBA has adopted that rule years later, and that's basically their new illegal defense is this idea of you can't be in the lane and you have to be in or out of it. I was so proud of that. My next one to solve to help basketball because basketball was helped by their 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 Bhimas just clogging everything up. The three-pointer came along and it opened up the game, but it's gone too far as a lot of people pointed out.

It's not necessarily a strategic thing or as a coaching thing; I think it's more for the fans because when you watch basketball and you love basketball, you don't want every team to play the same way. 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 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. It's ridiculous. It's really become annoying to me as a fan of the game. It's just not pleasant to watch. We have to remember 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. There has to be an aesthetic quality to these sports. Basketball is in danger of losing its aesthetic quality at every level, even, because now it's college is the same way as the NBA and it's even becoming a little bit that way at the high school level.

My solution to that, and I think in our lifetimes, if we live long enough, Dave, we're going to see this, as 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 goes off and it either cuts straight to the sidelines or angle to the sideline. In other words, you're eliminating the Corner 3. If you eliminate the Corner 3, which in funny way, 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. It's an easy 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 again, this freer flowing game, but again, what's become a very homogenous game.

I think if we just take away the Corner 3s, 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 to the post more often, because right now it doesn't pay to go to the post because, as you talked about with a three-point shop being so valuable, you work so hard to get it in there and you get two, and you don't get three. 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 bake the quartz bigger, which I just don't think is going to happen. What do you think about that, thinking sportsman?

David Gardner: I think it's really interesting. 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 Kimball, as you're talking, I'm thinking about traditionalism. 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 strikes system for Major League baseball that might be implemented. It's in minor leagues, etc. That starts at a lower level. I'm trying to picture, are there high school leagues that might start dropping that line down, marking where you think, etc. 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. How do you picture the movie of that actually occurring?

Kimball Crossley: It's going to start at the highest levels first, I think, or maybe at the college level before the NBA level. The reason why it's not as big a factor at the youth level, 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. Supposing in Europe they have shorter hoops, and they start teaching their kids on a shorter hoop, and it's actually smart because they can develop better form and habits with a more realistic goal, literally. The lower levels, you have almost the opposite problem; kids can shoot from outside. Teams in and clogged 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 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. I thought of this myself, but I must admit now I have seen other people writing similar things and talking about similar things. It's a gut feel that it's going to happen, and I think it will.

David Gardner: 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. TV ratings, I don't watch the NBA. I love college basketball so much. I watch so much college, but 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. Maybe that semi-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.

Kimball Crossley: Well, the NBA has improved this product, I think, and it's partly because of what we talked about before the defensive three-second rule. Now with the three-pointer, it rarely happens because it's the last thing people want to do. They are more free-flowing. I think there might be more the shot clock. The irony of you're trying to make it a faster game, but it's in fact, slower because it's more frantic and it's not as pleasant to watch because you always have to be quickly getting into it more quickly than you should instead of setting up a pattern which we see in college basketball. There's a nice, beautiful ballet to a pattern to a good college basketball game.

David Gardner: 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 30. Right in with a question, a thought or a challenge, or a poem. We love reading and sharing out your feedback. Our email address is rbi@fool.com. You can tweet us @RBI Podcast on Twitter, X. Kimball you have graciously consented to play our, game buy, sell, or hold. I've got five for you, a lightning round. You ready?

Kimball Crossley: Yep, I think so.

David Gardner: These are not stocks, but if they were stocks, would you be buying, selling, or holding, and why? Let's kick it off. Number 1, 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?

Kimball Crossley: No. Don't want that.

David Gardner: I love it. Why not? Come on. You can sell that.

Kimball Crossley: We've already addressed this. My problem will solve the problem that you're talking about. I think you're going to make it worse with a four-point shot. Now we're just going to go out further and jack up shots. Talking about use, they already are jacking up three-point shots because that can them imagine the logo on the floor. No.

David Gardner: I can't wait for it. If the line goes right across the court, it's the four. Sell.

Kimball Crossley: Please, no.

David Gardner: Let's move on to Number 2. Caitlin Clark as a billion-dollar brand, a cultural phenomenon on and off the court, but is the hype sustainable? Buy, sell, or hold, not just Caitlin Clark, but as a billion-dollar brand?

Kimball Crossley: Wow, I'm going to hold, I guess, because, I'm glad she exists. I'm glad it's really made the game more popular. But I think there's a negative aspect to it. Well, I'll say because I've said it on my pod; I think there's something a little off about Caitlin Clark. It's a little [inaudible] people think she's just America's sweetheart. In a way, to be such a good competitor, she's got to be a little ruthless. 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.

David Gardner: We'll hold that. Let's move on to Number 3. 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 Colosseum. Kimball, buy, sell, or hold the wave?

Kimball Crossley: 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. This is like my problem in baseball. I want there to be 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 in a bend. Yes, if you want to do it during breaks during the game.

David Gardner: But I'm trying to figure out, where's the hate? Why? What is bad or wrong about the wave happening?

Kimball Crossley: We've come to see the game. I came to see the game. I don't want people standing up in front of me, especially, if it's the 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.

David Gardner: Let's stick with baseball for Number 4. Campbell, buy seller hold. Baseball's pitch clock making it to Little League, speeding up America's pastime, even for 11-year-olds.

Kimball Crossley: [laughs]. Informally, maybe I'll say, I can't be a strict pitch clock. You don't want to do that to a kid. 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. To be anyone, baseball, focus on each individual who's so high, that poor kid in Little League standing on the mound. 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 informally, the umpire is allowed. In football low levels, it was ridiculous coaching freshman football. You could kill a quarter with a drive because they did not enforce the play clock. You could take forever to get your play in and out, and the clock is just running.

David Gardner: Well, you even started sounding like a seller at first, but I think I did hear a buy in there somewhere, Kimball. Thank you.

Kimball Crossley: I don't know what hold means because we don't have it. How am I holding?

David Gardner: Holding, you're like, I can't tell, I don't know. Actually, I think that was a hold because it may put too much pressure on the poor 11-year-old kid who held a little too long Ball 4. He didn't even throw it. He walks in the losing run. That will scar someone literally for life. Maybe we shouldn't be too intense, but maybe we could speed things up. Only six innings in the Little League. Last one. Got to end it here. You'll understand why very shortly because it's a phenomenon. Kimball Crossley, buy sell, or hold Taylor Swift in the owner's box.

Kimball Crossley: You've given me a tough one. I'm going to say, hold. I have no real problem with it. I don't think we need to focus on it so much, but I can't say, like, oh, Travis, you can't have your women there. I'm going to say hold on that.

David Gardner: We'll close with the hold. Some nice holding going on in that buy seller. I think it's the nature of what I brought you. 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. Kimball, thank you.

Kimball Crossley: Man's moving between innings and the hold.

David Gardner: I got it. Kimball Crossley, thank you for joining us 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 and continues to be, I think, a bigger business than ever it was before. It's such a delight to be with a fellow rulebreaker who helps us see things not just differently, but I'm going to say a little bit better. Kimball, thanks for joining us.

Kimball Crossley: My pleasure.

David Gardner: Kimball Crossley can be heard as a regular on three-point range, where he throws down other Rule Breakerisms every few weeks or so. You can find that where you find podcasts, Three-Point Range. Thanks, Kimball. Fool on.

John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. David Gardner has positions in Amazon. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.