Umpire! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Offside

To signal an illegal offside position, a linescat (or linesman / lineswoman, if human) in Association Football (soccer) first raises his or her flag straight above the head until acknowledged by the referee. Once this acknowledgement is given, the linescat will indicate the position of the offence by lowering the flag: If the flag is held horizontally, it happened in the middle third of the pitch (by width), if held at an upwards angle, the far third and if held at a downwards angle, the near third.

Answer: A touchdown

All four alternatives are indicated with both arms in a symmetrical position, but the touchdown signal (also used for other successful scoring events) is easy to remember because it very much reflects the "hooray" gesture of the player just having scored. For interference, Bilbo would need to hold his paws outstretched in front of himself, for a time out, he'd cross them over his head and for a first down, he'd bring them from a similarly outstretched position to a horizontal one.

Answer: Safe!

In the image, with the outfield behind him, Bilbo is serving as one of the base umpires (from the angle, most likely second base), not at home plate. He would thus be in charge of declaring a runner arriving at his base out or safe, but not make any judgement about the pitches.

Answer: There is no limit

By the laws of cricket, there is no limit to the number of runs a batter can score off a single hit, but in practice, physically scoring more than four runs is very rare and more than six almost unheard of. Still, in at least four instances in Test cricket, a striker and his partner managed eight runs off a single hit due to fielding errors, for example in a play by Australian Andrew Symonds (against New Zealand, 2008).

They took four physical runs before the fielding side made a bad throw sending the ball out of bounds for another four.

Answer: Three points and one free throw

The general free throw rule in basketball is to always give as many free throws to a shooter as the shot would have been worth if it had gone in. However, in the case that the shooter still hits the hoop in spite of the foul, his score counts normally and he still receives an additional free throw to attempt an extra point with.

In an aside, Bilbo's confusion about human sports terms was complete when he asked whether "referee" or "umpire" was the correct term for a basketball official, only to be told that depending on his role on the field, either could be correct.

Answer: Misconduct penalty

A misconduct penalty, unlike almost all other penalties in ice hockey, is a strictly personal penalty and not assessed against the team. The player penalized will be excluded from the game for ten minutes but may be substituted for during this time. It is however rare for a misconduct penalty to be given alone; usually it is accompanied by a minor penalty so that the team will have to play short-handed for two minutes.

The two minutes on the penalty bench are in this case served by the substitute and the ten minutes only begin to run when the minor penalty ends.

Answer: A professional world championship fight

Most of the rules and equipment are the same between professional and amateur boxing, however two key differences include the number of rounds being fought and the use of head protection. Amateur boxers at all levels all the way to the Olympics must wear protective headgear while professional boxing forbids this type of protection.

A more minor difference that the points judges have to take into account is that in amateur boxing, the strength of a hit is irrelevant and only the number of successful blows counts for score while in professional boxing, hit strength and the effect on the fighting ability of the opponent are important concerns in scoring a round.

Answer: Ippon

An ippon (literally "one point") is the highest score obtainable in Judo and the fighter achieving this score by virtue of a strong throw or inescapable hold or choke instantly wins the bout. A fighter landing a technique weaker than that can be given a waza-ari (half point) or yuko (small award). Two waza-ari for the same fighter also make up an ippon, even if the opponent also has a waza-ari, but yuko, regardless of number, only count as tiebreakers if the fight goes to time with both fighters either having no waza-ari or both having one. "Hajime" is also a judo call, it is used to begin the fight, the other two should certainly never be said by a judo referee!

Answer: Both with the right leg

The triple jump consists of two jumps made with the same leg and then the third, usually longest, leap with the other. Thus, a jumper can either jump left-left-right or right-right-left. This is reflected in the unofficial naming "Hop, step and jump" - the first leap is done hopping on one leg, the second is a jumping step (changing foot) and the third is done using traditional long-jump technique.

(I cheated a bit here: the photo actually shows a long jump event. In a triple jump, there would not be a foul line marked at this position)

Answer: A red flag

All FIA races use the same basic flag set for signaling drivers with important information. These include the yellow (danger), red (stop or prematurely end the race), green (all clear / end of danger zone), blue (faster car behind attempting to lap), black (disqualification) and checkered (normal race finish) flags.

The white flag's meaning is not standardized although most often it signals a slow car (damaged car, pace car, ambulance) ahead and some race types use additional flags with various patterns.