Polo Rules

Yeah, it's the best I could come up with to make the point that the shaft/head plays the ball (like the foot/leg and arm/hand in football and basketball respectively). I think we should promote playing the ball and punish hitting the 'hitting implement'.

If kicking and slapping were allowed in football and basketball both games would get as ugly as polo does.

Come on, kicking and slapping are blows to the player's body. You can't equate fouls like that in sports like basketball and football to stick clashes in polo, they're not analogous. An arm is not the same as a mallet.

Hooking a person's stick does not seem (in my head) worthy of a punishment, you might be impeding the stick, but you are not impeding or striking the body of the player.