The term “rubber match” is used to describe the last and most important game in a series. It comes from the 16th-century English game of lawn bowling. Lawn bowling is a game that is kind of like bocce ball. The goal is to roll wooden balls across a flat field toward a smaller, white ball so that they stop as close to that smaller ball as possible without hitting it. Most experts agree that the term “rubber match” comes from two lawn bowling balls rubbing together, which is a game-losing mistake, or from the fact that the final game could “rub out,” or get rid of, the losing team.
Rubber Match Origin
Even though no one knows where the term “rubber match” came from, one thing is for sure: it has nothing to do with rubber. As was already said, it was first used in lawn bowling games in the 1600s. If two game balls rubbed against each other, that could be used to break a tie and decide who won the game. Since then, we’ve kept using the term “rubber match” to talk about sports.
Others think the word comes from the phrase “rubbing out,” which means to destroy, erase, or get rid of something completely. Even though we can’t say for sure which came first, “rubber match” or this phrase, we can look more closely at lawn bowling and bocce ball to see how the term was and is still used in both games.
Lawn Bowling
In lawn bowling, teams roll hard plastic balls across a bowling green, which is usually grass, trying to land them as close as possible to a smaller ball called a “jack.” It may look like a simple game, but some matches have gone on for four hours.
In a singles match or a doubles match, each player rolls four balls. In a triples match, on the other hand, each player gets three balls. After everyone has rolled their balls, the distance between each ball and the “jack” is measured to figure out who won. Points, also called “shots,” are given to the player whose ball is closest to the jack. After all of a throw’s points are added up, the game starts over from the other end of the green.
Bocce Ball
So, is lawn bowling the same as bocce ball? Well, they are both sports, and they are both similar, but there are a few key differences between them. First of all, bocce is played with eight big balls and one small ball, which is usually called the “pallino” but is also sometimes called the “jack” or “boccino.”
In contrast to lawn bowling, each team gets four balls, and each one has a different pattern or colour that makes it easy to tell them apart. Each team can have up to four players, and the number of players on a team determines how many balls that team gets to throw. For instance, each player on a two-person team throws two balls. In a singles match, on the other hand, the player throws all four balls.
The teams start by flipping a coin. Whoever wins gets to choose the colours of their balls or who gets to throw the first ball. The next step is to roll the pallino. On a standard bocce court, the pallino must cross the centre line to be a legal throw. If the pallino doesn’t make it to the centre line or falls out of the court, the other team gets to roll it.
The person who rolled the pallino goes first and rolls their ball as close as possible to the pallino. After that, it’s the other team’s turn. After all the balls have been thrown, the teams get a point for the balls that are closest to the pallino. In Bocce, there is no “rubber match” because the game ends when one team gets 16 points.
How Does a Rubber Game Work?
The last game of a series is called a “rubber game” or “tiebreaker” if both teams have the same number of wins and losses. Around 1599, the phrase was first used in lawn bowling. By 1744, it was also being used in card games. Now, it is used at many different sports events.
But the term “rubber game” has been used in other ways as well. For example, in the card game bridge, the original game is called “rubber bridge.” In this game, everyone plays the same hand so that scores can be compared. Also, in card games, a “rubber of whist” is the best of three games that decides who wins.
In baseball, what is a rubber match?
The best of three, five, or even seven games is called a “rubber match” in baseball. For example, during the regular season of Major League Baseball (MLB), if two teams are tied for a spot in the playoffs, they need to play a tiebreaker game. But this doesn’t happen very often. In the MLB, only 16 tiebreaker games have ever been played.
And that’s a good thing, because if two or more teams are tied, things could get even more complicated, especially when it comes to naming divisional and “wild card” winners. In 1981, two minor league teams, the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings, played the longest professional baseball game ever. The game went on for 8 hours and 25 minutes, or 33 innings, and it took two days to finish. In addition, the “rubber match” part went on for 18 minutes.
In basketball, what is a “rubber match”?
In basketball, just like in baseball, rubber matches don’t happen very often. But the term still means the same thing, which is a way to break a tie. If a regular game ends in a tie, the players keep playing five-minute overtime games until a winner is found.
The longest National Basketball Association (NBA) game ever was played between the Indianapolis Olympians and the Rochester Royals in 1951. Before the Olympians finally won the game, they played a total of six sets of five-minute overtimes.
