When the powers that be change the rules of the game, are they in fact creating a new game?

Many a pugilistic endeavor at the local pub began from a perceived knowledge of a game at a certain point in time and the memory (or lack thereof) of participants in that game at that particular point in time establishing marks of achievement. Most home runs, most points, most goals, most touchdowns and the like are quintessential examples of marks of achievement for those games. In the vast universe of knowledge these are some of the easiest things to know.  Just add them up.

But what happens when the rules for that game, those ironclad definitions of what is acceptable and what is not during the competition, change?  Should that close the books on records for that sport, if players from here on out no longer play by the same rules? To be fair to one set of players before, and the next generation of players after a significant rule change, should there not be a clear demarcation of the great divide between the two?

In 1978 a basketball player at Baylor could make 10 shots from the floor and record 20 points. Today that same player could record 30 for the same number of shots. It's a different game today.  Should there be a different set of records?

Used to be you had to play a position in the field to bat in the major leagues.  Not any more. In the American League there is now a Designated Hitter, someone who does not play except to hit.  When looking at all the records prior to that monumental shift in rules does one not see the galactic inequity of comparing the before's with the after's?

What if horse racing allowed cheetahs to run with a gibbon strapped to it's back?  Provided you could keep the cat from eating the monkey on it's back (pun intended), I dare say we would see fewer and fewer horses and more and more felidae at the track.  Maybe make the field goal in football worth 10 points. Any doubt there would be a scrum over signing English soccer players to the NFL and attempts from 70 yards commonplace? Scoring records? Sky's the limit.

Of course there is the mewling of those who have not lived under the dramatic shifts in the game as the rules have changed.  But at some point rule changes have had such a dramatic affect on the sport, that it may not actually be the same sport anymore.