Mike Tice made a mistake, but he's not the only one in the NFL to do so. Jeff Gross/Getty Images

AUGUSTA, Ga. -- One thing the CBS poets never tell you about this "tradition unlike any other": The Masters stinks. Literally. When it rains here in Augusta, the resulting chemical reaction is, quite frankly, almost impossible to bear. And since it always rains at least one day here (which makes it all the more remarkable that this tournament was last pushed to a Monday 22 years ago), the putrid stench -- which the normally unquotable Retief Goosen aptly compared to that of a pig farm -- is as much a part of the tradition as Amen Corner and Rae's Creek, the peach cobbler and those unfortunately unscented azaleas.

And yet, as bad as it smells, it's forgotten the moment I glimpse at the back nine: as beautiful a nine-hole stretch as is possible (TV doesn't lie), golf's cathedral, simply breathtaking. Seeing it is like the moment you return to the ballpark of your youth (Dodger Stadium for me), when you catch that first sight of the damn near-perfection.

Since we suffered through a soggy opening day, when only a handful of players finished, and the only memorable moments (save one; read on) were miserable ones -- Billy Casper's 14(!) on the 16th and a Tiger Woods' drink-bound putt(!!), to name two -- I'll take a moment to unload a few nagging thoughts.

In an ode to my esteemed colleague and NFL-beat mentor, the great Peter King, I give you ...

Five Things I'm Pretty Sure I Know I Believe I Think:

1. The NFL is kidding itself if it believes -- or expects us to believe -- that Minnesota coach Mike Tice is the only league figure who scalps tickets. On Wednesday, NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue announced that Tice was found to be in violation of the league's scalping policy (after it was learned he'd sold an undetermined number of his allotment of Super Bowl tickets), and that he'd likely be fined but not suspended. Good enough -- as idiotic as Tice's actions were, they don't seem the high-crime variety. (If I'm Tice's boss, however, my man has no more second chances.)

But for the commissioner to say, after other organizations were investigated, that "no other teams were found in violation" is just laughable. I personally know roughly a dozen players and coaches -- and several more former players -- who've scalped their Super Bowl tickets regularly over the last decade. If I know about it, I guarantee you many, many others do, including the league's professional sleuths. To think otherwise is absurd.

Appearing on the Jim Rome Is Burning show last week, I said the NFL was far ahead of MLB in the arena of pro-active self-policing. I want my defense back. While scalping isn't steroids, the NFL's calculated hear-no-evil, see-no-evil response is insulting, even to a scapegoat such as Mike Tice.

2. Speaking of scapegoats, Devil Rays outfielder Alex Sanchez makes a questionable choice for one, don't you think? While Sanchez's positive test for steroid use represents among the worst lapses of judgment in the sport's history, baseball's sitting on the results for weeks before announcing his suspension on Opening Day was arguably just as nonsensical. Instead of the get-tough vibe MLB was surely going for -- beating its chest and strutting its stuff, all while affixing a face to its "Wanted" poster -- the whole affair felt contrived and, even worse, stupid. The next day, no one was talking about the previous night's Yankees-Red Sox game, whose buildup had finally managed to push the sterioid scandal out of the headlines for a week or so.