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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2010


WASHINGTONPOST.COM/SPORTS Tracee Hamilton and Barry Svrluga will take questions about the Redskins-Lions game in First Things First at 9:30 a.m.


WASHINGTONPOST LIVEWITH IVAN CARTER 5 P.M. ON COMCAST SPORTSNET CSN football analyst Brian Mitchell and TheWashington Washington Post’s John Feinstein will be live in studio.


NORMAN CHAD Couch Slouch


Instant replay’s gonna get you


E


very time I pledge to never write another instant- replay column, I breakmy


promise. What happens is this— I wait until 237,000 people have shouted deep into the night that we absolutely positively have to have replay to officiate games properly, and, then, after shaving and showering, I sit down to recordmy thoughts, which can be summed up thusly: NOINSTANT REPLAY. I realize the horse is out of the


JASON SMITH/GETTY IMAGES FOR NASCAR Clint Bowyer (33) andKevinHarvick (29) reach the finish line. Bowyer was the winner because of where he was when a caution came out. Chase picture remains the same


Top three stay in hunt, while Bowyer wins in a photo finish


BY JENNA FRYER


talladega, ala. — NASCAR’s three SprintCuptitle contenders hoped the tightest champion- ship in seven years wouldn’t be derailed by the typically chaotic racing at Talladega Superspeed- way. They got what they wanted


Sunday. There was a photo-finish win


for Clint Bowyer, and a traffic jam at the top of the standings featuring Jimmie Johnson, Den- ny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick with three races left in the Chase for the championship. Harvick was the runner-up in


Sunday’s Amp Energy Juice 500 to his Richard Childress Racing teammate, Johnson was seventh and Hamlin rallied to finish ninth. They head to Texas with four-time defending champion Johnson leading Hamlin by 14 points andHarvick 38 back. “It’s going to be an awesome championship battle all the way to Homestead, and I’m really looking forward to it,” said John-


TELEVISIONANDRADIO


WORLD SERIES 7:30 p.m.


San Francisco at Texas » WTTG (Ch. 5), WBFF (Ch. 45), WSPZ (570 AM)


PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL 8:30 p.m.


Houston at Indianapolis » ESPN


EXHIBITION COLLEGE BASKETBALL 8 p.m.


Florida Southern at Maryland » WTEM (980 AM) only from Comcast. GOLF


Woods no longer No. 1 player in the world For the first time in more than


five years, Tiger Woods is no lon- ger golf’sNo. 1 player. LeeWestwood of England took


the top ranking Sunday. He is the first European in 16 years to be No. 1 in the world and only the fourth player to get therewithout havingwon amajor. For now, this feels like one for


Westwood. “Whenever you can sit down


and say, ‘I’mthe best in the world right now,’ it’s a dreamthat every- body holds,” Westwood said, call- ing it themost satisfying achieve- ment of his career. Westwood has finished only


one tournament since the British Openwhile recovering froma calf injury. Yetheknewhewouldgoto No. 1as longasMartinKaymerdid not finish among the top two at theAndaluciaMasters in Spain. Kaymer tied for 21st, andwhen


hewalkedoff the 18thatValderra- ma, champagne began pouring in Westwood’s home in England, where he was joined by his par- ents and about 20 friends. . . . American Ben Crane won the


inauguralAsiaPacificClassicafter he eagledthepar-415thandmade an 8-foot birdie putt on the final hole tobeatEngland’sBrianDavis by a stroke in Selangor,Malaysia. Crane closed with a 2-under-


Wozniacki has won the most


par 69 at TheMines to finish at 18 under and earn $1 million in the first PGA Tour-sanctioned event in SoutheastAsia. . . . South Korea’s Na Yeon Choi


successfully defended her title in the LPGA Hana Bank Champion- ship in Incheon, SouthKorea. She shot a 3-under 69 for a two-stroke victory over VickyHurst. . . . Monday qualifier Rod Spittle


won the AT&T Championship in San Antonio for his first Champi- ons Tour victory, beating Jeff Slu- manwith a par on the first hole of a playoff.


TENNIS A day after escaping unscathed


from a minor car accident, U.S. Open champion KimClijsters de- feated top-ranked Caroline Wozniacki 6-3, 5-7, 6-3 to win the WTAChampionshipsinDoha,Qa- tar.


Clijsters, 27, won her third sea-


son-ending event and fifth title of the season. Clijsters played her first tournament since winning her third U.S. Open title in Sep- tember; she had been sidelined because of an infected foot. “I’m glad I won and it must be


disappointing for Caroline,” Cli- jsters said. “But I don’t knowhow many more years I’m going to keep doing this.”


tournaments this year—six—but has yet to win a major tourna- ment. She’s 15-24 overall against top 10 players. “I’ve had a fantastic year,”


Wozniacki said. “Iwonsix tourna- ments. I’ve beaten so many good players.Youknow, youcannotwin every match. I’ve made the finals of the championships, and I lost onematch today. “I will come back in the off


season and train, but right now I’mproud ofmy season.”. . . In Montpellier, France, third-


seeded GaelMonfils of France de- feated defending champion Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia 6-2, 5-7, 6-1 to win theOpen Sud de France. Monfils served 11 aces and


made the most of Ljubicic’s 39 unforced errors to claimhis third career title, his first sincewinning inMetz in 2009. . . . Mikhail Kukushkin won his


first title in his first tournament final, upsetting top-seeded Mikhail Youzhny 6-3, 7-6 (7-2) in the final of the St. Petersburg Open.


SOCCER Liverpool maintained its


strong play under new American ownership when it defeated Bol- ton, 1-0, in the English Premier Leagueonan86th-minute goalby Argentine midfielder Maxi Rodri- guez.


Liverpool won its second KAMRAN JEBREILI/ASSOCIATED PRESS After emerging from a car accident unscathed, Kim Clijsters wins theWTAChampionships in Qatar.


straight league game and ad- vanced six spots to 12th place, three points behind fifth-place Tottenham. Elsewhere, Kevin Nolan scored


a hat trick and Shola Amoebi scored twice as Newcastle routed 10-man Sunderland, 5-1. . . . New Jersey-born Giuseppe


Rossi scored on a penalty kick deep into injury time to allow Villarreal to salvage a 1-1 draw at Sporting Gijon and stay close to first-place Real Madrid in the Spanish league. . . . Edson Buddle floated a long


shot over Kasey Keller and into the top left corner midway through the 38th minute to give theLosAngelesGalaxy a 1-0victo- ry against the host Seattle Sound- ers in the first game of Major League Soccer’s Western Confer- ence semifinals. Buddle recorded his third ca-


reer playoff goal and his firstwith the Galaxy. His 17 regular season goals were second in MLS this year.


COLLEGES GeorgeWashington senior Me-


gan Hogan won the Atlantic 10 individual cross-country champi- onship—her second straight title — in record time on Saturday in Pittsburgh. Hogan ran the five-kilometer


course at SchleneyPark in16min- utes 56 seconds. She beat the record set in 2000


by Saint Joseph’s Christine Kane by 27 seconds.Hogan became the sixthrunner inconferencehistory to win consecutive conference ti- tles.


—Fromnews services and staff reports


son, the four-time defending champion. The race was marked by 87


lead changes, second most in NASCAR history, and a multicar accident that sent A.J. Allmend- inger’s car flipping across the track as the leaders roared to- ward the white flag. NASCAR threw the caution for Allmend- inger’s accident, and nobody had any ideawhowas out frontwhen the yellow waved. It took several minutes of re-


views for NASCAR to declare Bowyer the victor. He jumped the gun with celebratory burn- outs, then stuck his hand out his window for a congratulatory high-five with Harvick, who waited in his parked Chevrolet for theNASCAR call. While Bowyer celebrated, the


title contenders tried to make sense of the day. Johnson hov- ered around a TV monitor in the infield media center to watch replays of the final two laps, while a wide-eyed Harvick was later distracted by another view. “Oh, I didn’t know somebody


flipped,” he said. That’s how it usually goes at


Talladega, which every driver considered the wild card of the 10 Chase races. The goal was to set a strategy that would prevent mayhem at


Talladega. For Johnson and Hamlin, it was riding around the back most of the day then hook- ing up with a teammate for help for a final push. Only Hamlin lost the draft


and fell behind the pack and dropped a lap down. He needed to wait for the field to catch him, then slid inside a promised hole from fellow Toyota driver David Reutimann to stop the bleeding. From there,Hamlin needed cau- tions to get back on the lead lap and into position to keep his title chances alive. One of the cautions that


helpedHamlin hurtHarvick.He raced hard all day but damaged the nose of hisChevroletmidway through the race in a multicar accident on the backstretch. A quick pit-road job put him


back in contention, and he con- tinued his hard push. A caution for debris set up a restart with four laps remaining, and Har- vick received unusual help from Reutimann, who as a Toyota driver probably shouldn’t have pushed Hamlin’s competition to the front. “If you had your preference of


helping a Toyota, if you have a choice, I think we would try to pick a Toyota,” explained Reuti- mann, who wound up fourth behindtheRCRdriversandJuan


CAPITALSINSIDER


“He gets grumpy when he doesn’t score, so it’s good for him to get a couple.”


—Mike Green on Capitals teammate Alex Ovechkin's two power-play goals against the Calgary Flames on Saturday night


Sprint Cup standings Through race 7 of 10


1. Jimmie Johnson 2. Denny Hamlin 3. Kevin Harvick 4. Jeff Gordon 5. Kyle Busch 6. Carl Edwards 7. Tony Stewart 8. Matt Kenseth 9. Kurt Busch 10. Jeff Burton 11. Greg Biffle 12. Clint Bowyer


6,149 6,135 6,111 5,942 5,919 5,902 5,832 5,825 5,799 5,797 5,788 5,782


Pablo Montoya. “But sometimes you don’t have a choice and you have to go with whatever’s going to benefit your team the most.” Harvick wasn’t all that sur-


prised to get the push from Re- utimann. “It’s hard when you line all


those cars up at the end,” Har- vick said.“When you get down to the end, I mean, unless you’re just going to let off, I just don’t think that’s in many’s nature that sits behind the wheel of these cars. You have to just push whoever’s in front of you and go for it.”


—Associated Press


barn on this one already—in fact, many of those horses, and their rear ends, have their own sports talk shows on radio—but it’s important to reiterate the simple and sane point that replay is repugnant. Sometimes technology liberates us and sometimes it strangles us. Replay as an officiating tool diminishes the sports landscape so forcefully, I can’t believe otherwise reasonable folks can’t see it; rather, they’re shouting, “You’ve got to challenge that!” Sure, with replay, we get the


call right more often. But at what price? First of all, the video evidence


often is inconclusive. Then again, all of life is inconclusive, except when they’re out of your favorite flavor at Ben & Jerry’s and when you’re dead. (When the doctor toe-tags


you, that’s when you want to throw the challenge flag, but, alas, you can’t.) Second of all—and more


importantly—replay ruins the pure pleasure of sports viewing. Before television, we concentrated on the result of every play, not the officiating of every play; bad calls came and went without fanfare. With TV, and its ability to replay every play, we now see, or think we can see, everything. Once you extend the officiating function beyond the field—and allow for the possibility of checking or challenging every call—you change the entire sports experience, for the worse. The game is no longer the thing, the refs are the thing; on most plays —and certainly on every decisive play—you look at the officiating to see if anything was botched. (Column Intermission: As we approach NFL midseason, I stand proudly bymy Team of Destiny, the 4-3 Philadelphia Eagles. Picked for last in the NFC East, the Eagles are inexorably Super Bowl-bound. People dumped on Kevin Kolb at season’s start; I did not. I don’t even mind if I sprainmy arm pattingmyself on the back, because I have a great health- care plan.) These days, many college


football games start in mid- afternoon and don’t finish until midnight, thanks to replay; next thing you know, they will review halftime pep talks. Actually, I wouldn’t mind if replay could check to see how many SEC quarterbacks and Big Ten linemen go to class—that would be a game-changer.


DIGEST Recently, the Little League


World Series opted for replay. Just as insanely, professional


bowling will use replay this season. What’s next, replay in poker? (I guess it could be used to


confirm if Scotty Nguyen ordered a Dewar’s or an O’Doul’s.) Replay sucks away drama and


spoils great endings. Two Sundays ago, the Vikings’


Brett Favre found PercyHarvin in the back of the end zone in the final minute for an apparent game-winning, 35-yard touchdown pass against the Packers. Granted,Harvin’s right foot landed in the parking lot— so the score was overturned— but it would’ve become part of lore, and then Favre walks out of Lambeau Field a winner his final time, free to go home triumphantly to his cellphone. Plus, if you’re looking at the


video to see if a receiver’s foot landed in bounds, what happens when you notice that a defensive back pulled a knife and tried to cut off the receiver’s left ear just before the catch? This isn’t a slippery slope,my friends, it’s Mount Kilimanjaro. Frankly, we take more time to


reviewplays in the NFL than we do to commit a trillion dollars to a seven-year war. If we, the people, had replay as an officiating tool, I’mconvinced theUnited States would not have invaded Iraq.How is it we spend an eternity to figure out if a running back’s knee touched the ground before he fumbled while Colin Powell went to theUnited Nations Security Council in 2003, showed a bunch of charts and slides and—bang!—we were bombing Baghdad by nightfall? I remember seeing that computer-generated image of Iraq’sWMDfacility, yet four months later it was determined the Iraqis had no biological weapons. Where was the booth reviewon that one?


Ask The Slouch Q. Yo, Slouch, as a fellow


wayward soul, do you have any defense for Brett Favre? (Russ Smith; Oakland, Calif.) A.My mother always told me:


Don’t talk to strangers.My wife always tells me: Don’t text hostesses.Maybe Brett was never coached properly by the women in his life. Q.How come pitchers put on


their warmup jacket when they get on base? (James Caruthers; Baytown, Tex.) A. Coincidentally, Charlie


Sheen does the same thing when he walks into a brothel. Q. Do you thinkWorld Series


TV ratings would improve if they started every game in the sixth inning? (David Landau; Potomac) A. Pay the man, Shirley.


You, too, can enter the $1.25 Ask The Slouch Giveaway. Just e-mail asktheslouch@aol.com and, if your question is used, you win $1.25 in cash!


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