Maddux Sports Blog

I knew deep down that it was probably the inevitable truth, but I never really wanted to accept it. Mark McGwire is my favorite all-time baseball player who isn’t a pitcher. In fact, he’s probably my second favorite athlete of all time – the first is unquestionably Nolan Ryan. Needless to say, then, today’s news isn’t the best thing I have ever heard. If you have missed it, McGwire came clean on the fact that he had used steroids during his career, and that he did them off and on for ten years. He also used human growth hormones. Not surprisingly, McGwire admitted that he was juiced out of his mind as he shattered Roger Maris’ record and redefined home run glory forever. Brutal.

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So, when did the NFL become less competitive than non-conference college football? Six of the 12 games played yesterday were decided by at least four touchdowns. That’s preposterous. It makes for ridiculously uncompetitive action, and therefore mostly uninteresting football. The good news, I guess, is that at least we aren’t taking bets on the games – books are getting absolutely killed by favorites covering monster spreads like this. The favorites were 8-3-1 ATS this week, and the three biggest spreads, usually the public money magnets that the books feast on, all covered. Ouch. The disparity in the league this year is amazing. For the first time ever we have three undefeated teams through seven weeks of the season. On the flip side, we have three teams that could quite conceivably not win a game, and for a couple more it seems impossible to believe that they have already won one (or more). I thought salary caps were supposed to bring competitive balance?

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