The chain gang

Joe Posnanski on the absurdity of chain gangs in footbal (h/t the Dish)l:

The chains in football: Yes, it's a pretty worn down gag already about how absurd the chain gang is. Twenty-two people crash into each other, an official kind of guesses where he should spot the ball, it's about as imprecise as it can possibly be ... and then they measure the thing to a hundredth of an inch. I mean, it's ludicrous. And as I have pointed out before, what often happens then is that they throw the football across the field and re-spot it ... I say bring the chains back out. Sometimes you will see a center move the ball up a couple of inches before he snaps it ... I say bring the chains out yet again.

But Michael brought up a great point I had never thought about: Chains? Really? That's the measuring device we are using? When was the last time anything was measured by chains? What was that, about 160 BC? "Spartacus, he's about 20 links tall now." Chains. You have to be kidding me. It's so much a part of football we NEVER think about it, but it's absolute ludicrous. This is the most successful sports league in America, and they're measuring with perhaps the least precise measuring tool available. It's like the Flintstones. Seriously: How do they keep the chains in a perfect straight line? If they're not in a straight line, then you might be measuring less than 10 yards. How hard do you pull the chain to make it exactly 10 yards? They couldn't use a tape measure or a laser or something?

We were just imagining someone explaining football to a foreigner and saying: "And then, to be sure they moved the ball 10 yards out, the officials bring out chains to measure the distance?" And the foreigner might reply: "Chains? This is America? Isn't Apple and Google in America? You still use chains to measure distance?"

Now having worked with surveyors, I think some guys were using Gunter's chains into the 60's or 70's.  But this was similar to an observation made by one of my roommates in college, and it was quite possibly the wisest thing he ever said.