Technology is not always a step forward. For instance, the last half-century has produced the three most damaging innovations in the history of mankind:
Instant replay.
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_____ Monday Morning_____
A look back at the weekend and a look ahead at the coming week's action with a fresh new edge.
• Norman Chad's Couch Slouch
• Starting Lineup
• The Chat: George Gray, host of ESPN reality show "I'd Do Anything"
• 7 Days
• The Review: "Hooked: The Legend of Demetrius 'Hook' Mitchell"
_____ The Quote _____
"If we're normally in the dugout at the time they plan to do this, we're not going to not be in the dugout. We're not going to arrange, or rearrange, our routine to either be there or not be there."
-- Manager Joe Torre, making it perfectly clear where the Yankees will be when the Red Sox hand out their World Series rings before their home opener against New York.
_____ The Monday Morning Poll _____
Note: This is an unscientific survey of washingtonpost.com readers.
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Cell phones.
The Internet.
(Runner-up: Sports talk radio.)
This is inarguable, incontestable and irrefutable. However, for those of you unconvinced and unenlightened, I will explain my position below; if you still disagree, you are welcome to contact me, although I likely will disregard your comments as I would those of any Duke fan, a llama or Robert Novak.
• Instant replay. Tony Verna is credited for bringing to the air the first replay, in 1963, during an Army-Navy football game on CBS. Like Chip Muldoon introducing me to my first wife, it was well-intentioned; like that ill-fated introduction, it has worked out just about as well.
Replay was a breakthrough that initially changed the sports-viewing experience for the better. But, in the hands of producers, madmen and Tim McCarver, replay has choked off the natural flow of telecasts and created a subculture of incessant chatter that threatens the mental health of generations of Americans, adults and children alike.
If they just showed the occasional replay, we'd be fine. But they not only replay almost everything, they'll show multiple replays of the same fumble, basket or steal, which, in turn, induces massive overanalysis from ex-jocks experimenting with the English language.
McCarver treats every two-hopper to shortstop as if he's watching the Zapruder film.
(If replay were never invented, I figure McCarver would run his own navel-lint store.)
Couch Slouch says: Just Say No to Replay.
• Cell phones. If some knucklehead wide receiver wants to pull out his cell phone after reaching the end zone, so be it. But the next time some Wall Street wannabe starts chatting away next to me in a restaurant, on an airplane or in a doctor's waiting room, I'm going to cause a Cingular sensation that might get me on your late, local news.
And there is no defense for people using cell phones while driving. In fact, I would rather see someone reading USA Today while behind the wheel than talking on a cell, because there's virtually nothing in The Nation's Newspaper that could distract you from the road as much as a phone conversation.
