I'm going to begin this post by making a bold, ambitious declaration.
Mind you, this is not my own personal opinion. It is also not fact.
It is a declaration that the court of public opinion has decided before playing out in court. The aura of this declaration hovers like a dark, ominous cloud in the sky, with the sun nowhere in sight.
So here it is. EVERYONE is juicing. Yes. Everyone.
Doesn't it simply feel this way to you, sports fans? Every time you turn on the TV or surf the web, you hear or read about another star athlete being busted or implicated for performance-enhancing drugs. Many are under suspicion, and a handful are caught.
And let's be honest. Any time we see an athlete have a major breakout season or make a miraculous recovery from major surgery to dominate their sport, we assume they are using something!
We have reached the point in our society where we are suspicious of everyone. We are suspicious simply based on observation. Observation of a player's growth in muscle mass, or performance on the field of play.
We can argue all day why athletes juice; whether it is for ego, a competitive edge, their legacy, whatever. With the proliferation of PEDs over the last decade, it is easy to tie a significant improvement in performance to the aid of some kind of drug.
More recently than ever, we've seen some of the biggest names in sport either get caught or be accused.
-Lance Armstrong, the greatest cyclist of all time, is exposed as one of the great steroid cheats in history. Don't we now assume all cyclists use?
-Adrian Peterson destroys his knee late in the 2011 season. He not only makes a full recovery, but comes nine yards shy of the single-season rushing record. Come on, how could he not have "help"?
-Alex Rodriguez once admitting to using PEDs while with the Texas Rangers from 2001-2003. Now, he is linked to a Miami doctor that allegedly has distributed and administered PEDs to prominent athletes. We know for a fact he has juiced longer than three years, right?
-Gio Gonzalez is linked to the same doctor, but little to no evidence exists that he used PEDs. But of course, he had to have used! Most baseball fans will go under that assumption, and it will show at ballparks this summer.
I won't even get into Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, Sosa, et al. We all know their story.
To be fair, many pro athletes don't use PEDs at all. They perform their craft with integrity and are true role models. One example is Derek Jeter. Skip Bayless' wacky opinions notwithstanding, he is universally regarded as the athlete least likely to juice.
But how may of these "clean" athletes have lost the benefit of the doubt because of those that did juice? All of them. A prime example of this is the Blue Jays' Jose Bautista. Everyone and their brother assumed he started juicing after suddenly becoming a 50 home run monster in 2011, despite having never hit more than 20 in a season prior. However, he has not once been linked to PEDs. Guess what? We still assume he juiced, and is probably pretty damn good at circumventing drug tests!
All of this reveals two sad truths about sports:
1. PED use will always exist. As science progresses, so too do drugs undetectable by the most sophisticated of drug tests. Athletes will always attempt to stay ahead of the curve.
2. We have reached the point where the sports fan simply assume that athletes juice. They pretty much accept PED use as part of pro sports at a fundamental level. Also, most are simply tired of hearing about PEDs in the news.
Sports culture can now be summed up in four words: Guilty Until Proven Innocent. It is alive and well, and will not change any time soon. For better or worse.
Yes, the use of PEDs is immoral and hurts the integrity of sport.
We just don't care anymore.
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