Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2019 December 21

= December 21 =

Are there any oversized scale models of sports fields/courts/rinks/lanes/tracks/pools/tables/pitches/things you play on or in?
Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:16, 21 December 2019 (UTC)
 * What do you mean by "oversized"? Like, for example, a tennis court the size of a football field? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:26, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Or at least intentionally built above regulation size. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 02:33, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Can you think of any existing examples? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:02, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
 * There are heavy chess pieces the size of a good sized child for big boards but chess isn't a sport and doesn't change much for a wide range of sizes, enlarge a lot of sports thingies a little and suddenly difficulty levels change. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 05:22, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
 * That's taking something inherently small and making it much larger. And who says chess isn't a sport? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:11, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I think what SMW meant to say is that chess is not athletic. Elizium23 (talk) 08:40, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
 * He's entitled to his personal opinion. Chess has been covered by Sports Illustrated from time to time. Be that as it may, I'd still like to see an example. The closest I can think of is an obscure sport called Bandy, which is kind of like hockey on a football field sized rink. Though I don't think that qualifies either, as Bandy is not hockey. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:45, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Our Sport article covers the controversy of including chess and other mind "sports" as sports, weirdly with stuff in the lead that isn't in the article. The definition used in the lead would seem to preclude most mind sports. I'd note that even those who accept mind sports that are mentioned in our article seem to be fairly elitist about it and only seem willing to accept certain mind sports. An interesting point is that although there is some movement in that direction, at the moment it seems there is greater acceptance of chess as a sport than there is of Esports even though many esports have a great dexterity/physical activity requirement than chess or other minds sports like bridge. Nil Einne (talk) 10:04, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
 * It seems unlikely, as that would throw off existing strategies and tactics. Imagine a baseball field that's 50% larger than normal. Pitchers would have a hard time adjusting, and there'd be much fewer homers (though more of the inside-the-park variety). Clarityfiend (talk) 08:57, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
 * In baseball, the outfield and foul territories vary in size. The analogy would be to extend the distance between bases from 90 feet to, say, 135 feet. Which would be a crazy way to do things. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:31, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
 * According to this website, the USGA has guidelines on how long a par 3 should be (up to 250 yards for men). However, the Extreme 19th is the longest par 3 golf hole in the world, at 395 yards. That's about the closest to your stipulations I can come up with. Clarityfiend (talk) 10:07, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Your question is fairly unclear. For many sports, it's probably not that difficult to make something approaching a oversize field, you just need to find patch of grass that is large enough. E.g. [//www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9Pc1vf_tlg]. Even for other sports, it's probably not that difficult e.g. [//digg.com/video/extra-large-table-tennis-pongfinity] (I'm not sure if the scaling is entirely right, and of course it's only in two dimensions). For any major sport which that doesn't require some sort hard to produce surface, I'm sure there must be someone out there who once tried a significantly larger than normal playing area. Heck many of them are probably documented somewhere on the internet. I mean even for wacky sports like ice hockey, you only need to find a large surface of ice. Finding larger playing equipment might be a bit more difficult, I mean for the ping pong one there is this [//www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnFnnyOOqsE], but it's only 20% and this football ball [//handilifesport.com/en/product/wheelchair-soccerball/?v=8e3eb2c69a18] is only 50% I think. Although I suspect you can probably find something not really made for playing with that is sort of like a lot of equipment. And you didn't seem to really mention equipment in your original question. Nil Einne (talk) 10:19, 22 December 2019 (UTC)


 * In competitive swimming, olympic pools have a regulation size which affects how often you have to change direction when swimming laps. But there are much bigger pools in which you can also swim competitive laps.  Does that count?  Also, some sports have big and small versions, like golf vs miniature golf, giant slalom vs regular slalom in skiing, etc.  Or some events are simply scaled by distance: 100 meter dash, 200 meters, 400m, 1 mile, 5km, 10km, marathon, and maybe a few other intermediate distances.  Finally some change the equipment as the scale changes, e.g. automobile racing vs foot or horse racing. 173.228.123.190 (talk) 06:49, 23 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Not a "scale model", but Formula 1 racing is done on small, several km circuits where typical lap times are a little more than a minute or 1m40sec on longer tracks. However for a while the German grand prix was held on the Nürburgring Nordschleife which took 8-10 minutes or more even for Formula 1 cars and is legendarily so large that it can have different weather in different parts. With dozens of corners and treacherous jumps it was not a driver favorite in a sport where drivers usually learn the track corners, hills and dips by heart. 89.172.57.193 (talk) 01:56, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
 * How far did they jump? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 15:05, 27 December 2019 (UTC)