The dumbest sports rules in the world, according to Reddit
Even if you've played a certain sport for your entire life, there's a chance you might not know all the rules.
The users of Reddit proved this with a thread asking a simple question: "What are the dumbest rules in any sport?"
After less than a day on the site, the question has already garnered over 4,000 responses. Keep reading to see some of the most puzzling sports rules, according to Reddit.
NFL Football
"In the NFL, if you fumble anywhere on the field and it goes out of bounds, you get the ball back where it went out. But if it goes into the end zone and out of bounds, not only do you lose possession, but the other team gets the ball on the 20." - Electric-Banana
"In the NFL you're allowed to challenge a call, but you're not allowed to challenge the lack thereof." - northCorrea
"Pass interference in (American) Football. I have never understood the concept of this. Isn't the whole point to interfere with the receiver's ability to catch the football? I'm not saying we should be going full WWE here and saying people should be slamming each other to the ground, but why are we penalizing players for doing the job they're supposed to be doing — stopping receivers from catching footballs?" - NightwingDragon
Hockey
"In the NHL, you get a two-minute minor penalty for having your jersey tucked in." - jahenry13
Chess
"If one player has only the king remaining but cannot move without getting into check-mate, it's a draw." - HellTanner
"In chess for women, there is a rule that a woman has lost a game if she has too much cleavage showing. If her opponent claims this happens, there is some kind of jury who will decide whether the woman has indeed too much cleavage showing or not." - Xadya
Golf
"In golf, you can be watching on TV, call in, and point out a rules violation, thereby getting the golfer disqualified. Literally, any fan can report a rules violation." - JaguarGator9
"In golf if during your back swing you break a tree branch you are penalised a stroke." - idk-lol
"If your ball lands in a divot in the fairway you have to play it out of the divot - severe punishment for a perfect shot." - skiingisfun70
"Wiping the dew off your ball is a violation of rule 13-2. Two strokes for dew wiping." - hardyplankboys
"You have to keep your own score. The goddamn tournament is on TV and they have a huge scoreboard on the 18th, but your card with your stupid little pencil is official, and if you accidentally give yourself a worse score than you actually earned, [that score is what stands]." - UtzTheCrabChip
Women's Lacrosse
"When the ref blows a whistle everyone has to stop moving, like freeze tag, until play is restarted. Also if a timeout is called, they put their sticks down and return to them afterwards to ensure no one moved during the timeout." - StupidSexyFlanders14
Canadian Football
"In Canadian football, you get 1 point for MISSING a god damn field goal as long as it has enough distance to land past the end zone.
My college football career ended because of this ridiculous rule. In the playoffs the game was tied with a couple seconds left and the opponent got the ball to our ~30 yard line. This is border line field goal range (at least in that league) so what did they do? Brought our their punt unit and punted the ball through the back of the end zone for my career ending rouge." - dcmcderm
Cricket
"I don't know if it is a rule per se, but the fact that test cricket stops for scheduled tea breaks always filled me with a sense of WTF? It is literally the most British thing one could ever imagine." - DavidBowiesCokeSpoon
Rugby
"The fact that a rugby game can be won on penalties alone. They need to reduce penalty conversion (and field goals) to 1 or 2 points and encourage try scoring." - gamman
Formula E Racing
"Fanboost in Formula E. The driver who gets the most mentions on Twitter during a race gets to use extra power (it's electric Formula racing, so they can do that in software for some amount of time). I'm not even kidding." - njofra
Soccer
"Getting a yellow card for celebrating a goal by taking your shirt off." - XellosPY
"In football (soccer), if the referees didn't call it, it didn't happen, even if there's video evidence of it. What's worse, if the referee sees for example a foul wrong, he may even punish the wrong team (a penalty or a yellow/red card) despite video records showing how it actually happened. In a sport, where a penalty is pretty much a sure goal and a goal can decide the whole match, this is pretty freaking important imo." - gorocz
College Basketball
"Intentional fouling in college basketball can cause the last few minutes of a close game to take over a half hour real time. Intentional fouls should be technical fouls but for some reason people enjoy watching this and refs don't call obviously intentional fouls as technicals. It ruins the whole game for me. Earlier in the game the same fouls would be called as technical." - Ranndym
Baseball
"Dropped third strike results in the catcher having to throw down to first base to 'complete the out.'" - WumpusAmungus
"Baseball, if a runner is hit by the ball (after the batter hits it) it's 'player interference' and the runner is out. Because being hit by a ball is every runner's dream." - Lludra
Water Polo
"It's illegal to have your entire body out of the water at one time." - NightmanCometh
Squash
"In squash, if you... A) vomit on the court, you lose the match. Making the court unplayable. B) go off court to vomit, you lose the game you were just playing. But... C) if you vomit off court whilst stood on court (open the door and throw up out) you can continue as normal." - sjl_1990
And, of course, Quidditch.
"Catching the snitch is worth 150 points." - MsTirnanOg
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