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January 11, 2008

'Roids

Everyone who knows me knows that I do not approve of any athlete found to have used steroids. I say strike their records (or asterisk them, at least) and throw them out of the Hall of Fame.

That being said, I have an idea to throw out there.

What if, say, an athlete was sitting there, trying to fight against the effects of age and years of overuse to their bodies, and says to his personal trainer, "Isn't there something we can do?"

And Trainer says, "Well, X vitamins and Y pain relievers are said to work miracles." But what the trainer is thinking is, "If he doesn't keep producing, he won't need me any more and will retire. I want to keep this gravy train going, and the only thing that will really help is steroids. I'll show him the info on B12 injections, lidocaine, and all these other flim-flam "cures" but I know that HGH and certain steroids can't be detected, so I'll actually inject him with those. He won't even know what he's taking, but it will keep this gravy train going for a while longer. Gotta get me that boat!"

Trainer then gets prescriptions, either legally in the name of the player at doctors with questionable morals or illegally, and tells the player, "I got your stuff right here. Rub this stuff on your sore joints, it is filled with B12 and pain reliever-- all legal, don't worry." Or tells player, "Here are those B12 injections you ordered! Aren't I just the best trainer ever? By the way, the prescriptions are in your name for legal reasons. You understand."

Players then honestly say that they never knowingly took any form of steroid or HGH or anything else banned or illegal to the sport. They think they are playing by the rules.

This necessitates the player turning a blind eye to the changes his body undergoes while on this regimen. He may suspect what is going on, but figure he has plausible deniability, forgetting that the prescriptions are in his name and that the trainer will provide his name at the drop of a hat if called to testify on anything to save his own reputation. And, let's face it, human beings are good at justifying what is going on in their lives; the steroid-induced changes may simply be a blind spot that their egos refuse to let them see.

This story also allows for those cases where Player A says he saw Player B inject something. As long as Player B thinks it is something legal and Player A doesn't know, or learns somehow that it is not legal, both stories told by both players are true-- one doesn't knowingly take anything banned and the other knows that the first is using banned substances.

I'm not trying to give these guys an excuse. And many of the athletes are definitely guilty. It just occurs to me that the trainers may have an entire seedy underworld in place to keep their own jobs going and give themselves a big reputation or make more money. And it seems plausible to me that they would try to keep that going without even informing the players of what they are doing or taking.

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