Faulk, Sanders, five others get Hall of Fame nod

With the scrutiny of this year's Hall of Fame voting and the quest to keep Cooperstown clean, it is interesting to note that there is already one player enshrined who used steroids to prolong his waning career.

In honor of the upcoming Super Bowl XLVII (the 49ers against the Ravens, in case you hadn't heard), to be played in New Orleans, the theme of Thoughts On the Business of Life this time is football. One of the highlights of this season has been the emergence of numerous young quarterbacks, such as the 49ers' Colin Kaepernick and the wounded Robert Griffin III of the Redskins, to complement veteran stars like Joe Flacco,  Tom Brady, the Manning brothers and Aaron Rodgers. It seems like there have never been so many great quarterbacks in the league at the same time.

Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and a litany of other players who played during MLB's Steroids Era were denied entry into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in their first appearance on the ballot Wednesday.

Our everyday lives are bettered by visionary inventors, and we were reminded of that on May 2, 2012, when ten new inductees to the National Inventors Hall of Fame were honored by David Kappos, Unders Scretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The 40th annual induction ceremony took place at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery, the site of the historic Patent Office where the Hall of Fame’s first inductee, Thomas Edison, received his patents.Most of the 2012 honorees were on hand, including Barbara Liskov, whose innovations in the organization of computer programming can be found in almost all modern programming languages; C. Kumar N. Patel, whose carbon dioxide laser developed while at Bell Labs is an essential component in the medical, industrial, and military arenas; and Gary Starkweather, who while with the Xerox PARC facility invented the laser printer. They were joined on stage by 21 previous inductees.Three honorees were inducted posthumously, including Mária Telkes, known as the “Sun Queen” for her pioneering work in solar energy; and Steve Jobs, whose influence spanned personal computing, film animation, consumer technology, and digital publishing.A list of all ten honorees and their accomplishments can be found on the USPTO web site.

Football great Emmitt Smith was just inducted into the Hall of Fame. I had the great pleasure of playing golf with Emmitt a few years back. It is a round I will never forget.

National Football League all-time rushing leader Emmitt Smith and all-time receiving leader Jerry Rice were among seven gridiron legends voted into the American Football Hall of Fame here on Saturday.Also elected were guard Russ Grimm, after a 14-year wait since becoming eligible, plus defensive tackle John Randle, linebacker Rickey Jackson, running back Floyd Little and cornerback Dick LeBeau.

The NFL Combine is a workout camp where NFL draft prospects exercise in front of NFL scouts and coaches. It's hugely influential even though the vast majority of the drills only have a tangential relationship to the game of football. Here's a perfect example of how the Combine is dumb: