Leveling the playing field is a cliché that means no one has an advantage based on the surface on which they are playing. While I have already written about the advantage of playing at home, I have not addressed the issue of the surface itself.
Tennis is the only sport on which the same game with the same rules is played on different surfaces. Baseball is the only sport on which two different surfaces are used in the same sport at the same time. (There is the rare occasion when when football is played on a baseball field – mostly in high school sports in the northeast. However, it is rare.) It means that in tennis the player has to make adjustments throughout the year depending on which surface they will be playing on that season. Often a player will play leadup tournaments in order to get ready, make the right changes to their game so they will be successful in the larger more lucrative tournaments.
In tennis the player, if he or she is going to be a champion he or she must learn to play on grass (The Championships Wimbledon), hard (The US Open), clay (The French Open) and Cushion acrylic hard court (or better known as a different kind of hard court. I think the Australian Open is just trying to differentiate itself from the US Open. This is what they call in law, difference without a distinction.)
Yet there is another aspect to sports that must be accounted for. In some sports there are outdoor and indoor versions. Track, tennis and depending on the stadium baseball and football have both indoor and outdoor venues. Track sees the athlete run the same distance with varied outcomes depending on the condition in which it is being played. might be inside or outside. In one controversy in which Usain Bolt ran the fastest time in the 100 meters, people argued he had a wind advantage (not against the other runners, they were all running in the same conditions but against the world record). So like in other sports there was an asterisk attached to that record. (I will address the asterisk in a forthcoming blog about data analysis in sports entitled Moneyball.) The conditions in which a sport is played can add to the excitement of the event. Who can forget in 1982, the “Snowplow Game” that started a long conversation about the cheating of The New England and ultimately led to a NFL rules change.
We love what weather conditions can do to outdoor competition. I distinctly remember at sleepaway camp when it would rain and huge puddles would form on the fields and we would rush outside to run and slide in the mud. Now there are races with trucks in the mud called “mud bogging” and even the 4 minute hysterical Maulden Mud Race. In fact, weather is so much a part of sport that Nike had a commercial that showed two people competing against each other in all sorts of conditions. This is not to mention an entire industry that makes fortunes on special gear for outdoor activities.
In golf, the natural environment plays such a subtle yet significant role you might even see a player lying on the ground inspecting the small deviations in the surface. They may toss a blade of grass in the air to see which way the wind is blowing. Golfers regularly place a few practice rounds in order to get a general feel for the course, while still needing to make significant adjustments to the course while playing. The hardness of the ground changes day to day based on so many factors such as temperature and rain. Then each golf course changes the placement of the hole to keep the golfer on their toes. Then one last challenge is the length of the shot for which golfers are trying to figure out the right club to use. In many ways golf offers the greatest challenge in adjusting to the surface. In golf there are fairways and greens. There is the rough and the sand bunkers.
Some sports, depending on the weather, will cancel the game. While baseball has rain delays or cancellations, football and soccer will almost never cancel forcing fans to brave the conditions just as much as the athletes without the benefit of running around, though we do get to have hot chocolate in thermoses. I still have warmers that were given out at Metlife Stadium. There is something to watching sports in person, even though with today’s technological advances a game can better be watched from a television. But then you miss tailgating. In tennis, in extreme heat, extra breaks are offered and rain will bring an immediate stop in action. Where possible, game is suspended, the roof is closed and outdoor becomes indoor. While golf, because of exposure and potential lightning strikes each course judge makes the determination. No matter what, these outdoor arenas are equipped with incredible technology to remove the water pretty quickly. When I was growing up, games were often canceled even if it wasn’t raining because of how muddy the field was.
In indoor arenas the surface can be changed in hours to accommodate varied sports in the same venue. It is amazing to watch an arena being transformed from a concert venue to a hockey game to a basketball game in hours. Just the idea of placing a wood floor over and ice skating rink boggles my mind. Sam Rosen, one of my favorite sportscasters, in describing the change at Madison Square Garden from a Knicks Game to a Rangers game, basketball to hockey, calls it magical.
The athlete has to make constant adjustments. No matter, Court, Field, Rink, Pitch, Grass/Clay/Hard Indoor or Outdoor adaptations must be made. That is why there are breaks at predetermined times. In hockey there are periods, in basketball and football there are quarters with larger breaks at the half. Soccer only has halves, baseball innings, tennis sets and so on and so on. These are opportunities to stop the action and make accommodations. Playing a different defense, playing a more aggressive offense or changing the match up altogether is what those stops give. For the most part the adjustments are to what the opponent is doing. For many of us spectators, watching from the stands we understand that if we afford ourselves the opportunity to stop, think and analyze we can make the adjustment to what others are doing around us. We know that you can control the surface or even the environment and those adjustments can be even more difficult, until you realize everyone else is working in the same conditions.