One of the Evils of Life and Changes in Football?

I think I have all the documents I need to start my taxes. So, here we go again. Time to fire up TurboTax, collect various receipts, print out forms from Scottrade, dig through the medical file to find out how much we spent on precriptions, and so forth.

It's going to be an interesting process this year with all the different situations I find myself in. Unemployment, funeral, odd job income, new business expenses, and business losses.

It's something we all have to deal with, so I best get on with it.

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Kurt Warner is scheduled to announce his retirement/non-retirement decision in just under three hours. If he decides to stay, it just delays the inevitable transition. If he retires, the Cardinals need to become Matt Leinart's team quickly, and the running game will become a focus for Coach Whis. I'm wearing Cardinal red today (see photo two entries below) to support both Kurt and the team no matter the decision.

The expiration of the agreement between the players and owners will make this an interesting season regardless. My understanding is that if no new agreement is reached, the salary cap goes away for the 2010 season. One of the reasons I have turned away from baseball to football was the long stretch without a labor dispute. I also like the salary cap, and how it seems to have brought a lot of parity to the NFL. With no salary cap, do you see Indianapolis and New Orleans as the top seeds in playoffs, or do the large market teams dominate like they do in baseball?

Remember the days when the Kansas City Royals were a contender? That was back in the mid 1980s. It's a small city market, and they can't compete with George Steinbrenner, who constantly buys pennants. The Yankees are a great organization, but it isn't hard to win that many pennants if you have the cash to hoard all the good players. It takes away from the game.

A lockout of the 2011 football season, which the sportswriters all predict, would probably push me away from football into hockey. That would be a great loss, because I love football.

Bash Brothers?

So, Mark McGwire now admits to what we all already knew. His 70 homeruns were juiced. So, the allegations go, are the 762 hit by Barry Bonds. So let's look at the top spots here.

Career Homers:
Barry Bonds - 762 = Juiced
Hank Aaron - 755 = Legit
Babe Ruth - 714 = Legit

Single Season Homers:
Barry Bonds (2001) - 73 = Juiced
Mark McGwire (1998) - 70 = Juiced
Sammy Sosa (1998) - 66 = Juiced
Mark McGwire (1999) - 65 = Juiced
Sammy Sosa (2001) - 64 = Juiced
Sammy Sosa (1999) - 63 = Juiced
Roger Maris (1961) - 61 = Legit
Babe Ruth (1927) - 60 = Legit
Babe Ruth (1921) - 59 = Legit

So what do you think? The reason homerun numbers went down after Maris was mainly due to improvements in pitching. The split finger fastball and the forkball had a lot to do with it. And then, suddenly, in 1998 not one, but TWO guys broke the record set by Roger Maris in 1961? I smelled a rat back then, and now the last rat has been squirreled out.

This isn't asterisk country, this is shameful. Sorry Sammy, Barry, and Mark. You juice the Babe on steroids and he hits a hundred. The three of you cheated and should be banished from the record books and from the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Aaron and Maris still hold the records as far as I'm concerned.