Techniques of a sport no longer used or prevelant

[TheRicSlick]

So I was thinking today about how football kickers today don't use the straight toe kicking technique that everybody in the olden' days used. Now it's more of a soccer style kick.

And one day I wish to see barefoot kicking make it back into the NFL for 2 reasons.

1. You look like a badass

2. I think you kick better without a shoe

[Veras]

While we're on kickers, how about the drop kick?

[BBTV]

Are there ant "stand up" goalies anymore? I remember back when butterfly was taking over, Ron Hextall was referred to by one of the announcers as one of a dying breed.

[IceCap]

Are there ant "stand up" goalies anymore? I remember back when butterfly was taking over, Ron Hextall was referred to by one of the announcers as one of a dying breed.

You saw it die with the rise of butterfly goalies like Potvin, Roy, and Brodeur but you're seeing the style make a come back...sorta. The new "hybrid" style mixes stand-up and butterfly.

[aci]

Not a common one, but a centrefielder playing so shallow they can take the pickoff throw at second base. I can't remember seeing it in the majors, but I know it used to happen at least semi-regularly.

[PhantomDreamer]

Old fashioned windup in baseball. Paul Byrd brought it back for a little bit. Sky hook in basketball.

[Jaffa]

There was debate in the early days of association football on whether or not to allow hacking - the practice of kicking one's opponents in the shins. This was permitted under a number of rival codes (the Cambridge rules, for example) but by the time the FA's Laws of the Game were finally codified it had been removed.

'Hacking is the true football.'

F. M. Campbell, Blackheath FC and FA Treasurer

[BBTV]

2 handed catches in baseball. Today's outfield gloves are so huge it's inpractical.

[Mac the Knife]

The stolen base. Still around, of course, but nowhere near as prevalent as it once was.

[BBTV]

The stolen base. Still around, of course, but nowhere near as prevalent as it once was.

Small-ball in general.

Also the suicide squeeze.

[pcgd]

2 handed catches in baseball. Today's outfield gloves are so huge it's inpractical.

While I'll agree its a lost technique, I don't believe the reason is impractical. You still see it even at the pro level and especially at the lower levels. I don't mean little league, I mean high school/college/minors where they are using the same sized gloves and they use 2 hands. If you say unnecessary, then you might have me because with a giant glove I'm not sure the real benefit to using 2 hands other than it's "the right way." With a infield glove or catchers glove I get it 100% but you might have me on an outfielders glove.

Keeping with baseball: Railroading the catcher is now a lost technique.

[kewp80]

2 handed catches in baseball. Today's outfield gloves are so huge it's inpractical.

Keeping with baseball: Railroading the catcher is now a lost technique.

This is a big one that I miss. Granted it's for safety, which I totally get, but now the catcher basically just gives them the run.

Tongue in cheek, but I miss defense in the NBA.

[Coast2CoastAM2006]

Common sense and intellectual forward thinking in the NHL.

[OnWis97]

I may be wrong about this, but I feel like when I was a kid in the 80s, a pitcher ahead 0-2 would throw a pitch way outside or in the dirt to try to get a hitter to chase it. And it seems now that they don't want to "waste" that pitch anymore. Maybe it's a result of pitch counts or maybe someone figured out that such pitches were rarely "chased".

Another one is the intentional walk. I suspect (and maybe one of you stat hounds can prove or disprove me) that 1st base open with fewer-than-two outs draws fewer intentional walks than it did 20 years ago.

[leopard88]

Non-Fosbury Flop high jumps.

[Jimmy!]

While it's not a technique, and I understand why they're no longer used, I miss the one- and two-bar facemasks.

[pcgd]

I may be wrong about this, but I feel like when I was a kid in the 80s, a pitcher ahead 0-2 would throw a pitch way outside or in the dirt to try to get a hitter to chase it. And it seems now that they don't want to "waste" that pitch anymore. Maybe it's a result of pitch counts or maybe someone figured out that such pitches were rarely "chased".

Another one is the intentional walk. I suspect (and maybe one of you stat hounds can prove or disprove me) that 1st base open with fewer-than-two outs draws fewer intentional walks than it did 20 years ago.

I think batters can recognize pitches better and stay away from those so they have to pitch closer to the zone.

Its kinda crazy to me that we were taught 0-2 to pitch in the dirt OR up and in. Everyone was taught this. Is there any level that shouldn't be pitching up and in more than high school and lower???

[pianoknight]

Horse Collars, Clotheslines, Punching, Groin Kicks and General Thuggery.

[CS85]

I think the NFL and football in general still has plenty of dogpile brutality, it's just easier to pick apart with cameras these days. I recall reading one former pro's book where he talked about a dogpile on a running back and a defensive lineman, tangled in all the bodies, picked a guy in the other colors and began to repeatedly punch him as hard as he could in the balls. After the play was over, some poor bastard was retching and eventually went to the hospital. The older stories are even more terrible from before the game met TV. Guys would just destroy one another.

Thankfully now it's a much more decent game where we wait until these guys are in their 50's and off of television as their bodies slowly crumble into dust.

[Berlin Wall]

The good old Libero (Sweeper) position in soccer.