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back for one more year before retiring as one of the most successful pitchers of your generation.\u00a0 But, all of a sudden you are accused (with factual evidence) by a former U.S. Senator of a crime that has been proven time and time again to blatantly not fall under the pretense of “innocent until proven guilty.”\u00a0<\/p>\n(If you don’t believe this, ask yourself what proof you have on Brady Anderson.\u00a0 The answer is “none,” but I have yet to meet anyone that does not believe, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that he was a juicer, including Yours Truly).<\/p>\n
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So, now you have two options:\u00a0 (1) deny, deny, deny, or (2) admit it.\u00a0 If you\u00a0take option one, you get mercilessly ridiculed and vilified because no one believes you no matter how airtight you think your denial is (see:\u00a0 Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro, Jason Giambi, Mark McGwire…).\u00a0\u00a0For some reason, players do still decide to take this route (Roger Clemens), but it does not seem the smartest way anymore.\u00a0 So, you are probably relegated to going with\u00a0option 2–to admit that you did it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If you are going to do that, though,\u00a0are you really come out and say:\u00a0 “Oh ya, I took that stuff.\u00a0 I heard that it would make me bigger, faster and\u00a0stronger, and I really wanted to be bigger, faster and\u00a0stronger than everyone else in the game.\u00a0\u00a0I got my dentist to prescribe me HGH; I got\u00a0my kid’s pediatrician to\u00a0sneak me some flaxseed oil;\u00a0and, I got\u00a0my veterinarian to authorize a 24-month supply of anabolic steroids designed for a 1500-pound steer.”\u00a0 No, probably not–at least if you have any concern for your reputation\u00a0or legacy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So, you come up with a believable story\u00a0<\/a>depicting yourself as the\u00a0“gladiator” that defines today’s athlete, and how\u00a0you\u00a0were heroically\u00a0injured in the\u00a0field of battle.\u00a0\u00a0Then,\u00a0unlike most narcissistic modern athletes, you felt that you “owed it to your teammates and fans” to come back quickly.\u00a0 You found a way to recover quicker, but you did not do anything to enhance your performance.\u00a0 You may have <\/em>made a questionable decision, but\u00a0if so, it was\u00a0with\u00a0nothing but genuine motives.\u00a0\u00a0And, you only did\u00a0it twice in 13\u00a0 years of major league\u00a0baseball.\u00a0 Who could be mad at that?\u00a0 Hasn’t everyone made mistakes?\u00a0 You should be praised, not admonished; admired, not comdemned.\u00a0\u00a0 To top it off, you\u00a0throw in a couple\u00a0lines like:\u00a0<\/p>\n Case closed.\u00a0 Who wouldn’t have done what you did?<\/p>\n The\u00a0strange thing is that I do actually like and respect Andy Pettitte. \u00a0I believed him when he came out and said what he said.\u00a0 I despised Clemens for what he did–sending a denial through a lawyer–but Pettitte seemed to handle\u00a0his own situation\u00a0with a sense of class.\u00a0 Was he\u00a0merely the victim of\u00a0the crooked, no-holds-barred\u00a0culture of today’s professional sports?\u00a0 Is the pressure that we place upon\u00a0our athletes to perform as heroes at the highest levels the real culprit in this whole ordeal?\u00a0 What self-respecting human being would not try and use anything possible to\u00a0gratify the millions of “regular people” who live and die by your performance on a daily basis?\u00a0\u00a0What responsible employee wouldn’t\u00a0do anything in their power to justify an exorbitant\u00a0salary simply for playing a\u00a0child’s game?\u00a0 Who\u00a0are the real victims here?<\/p>\n The\u00a0elicitation of these\u00a0naturally-human responses and emotions are precisely why Pettitte’s comments <\/a>on Saturday were ingenious.\u00a0 The phrases he used and the concepts he evoked are disarming, even admirable.\u00a0\u00a0He called\u00a0accusations of\u00a0performance-enhancing drug use “nonsense, wrong and hurtful” and said that it was “embarrassing for his name to be out there.”\u00a0\u00a0His\u00a0comments\u00a0took the dastardly act of steroid use and effectively cloaked it in a veil of human imperfection, with even a touch of grace and dignity. I set out to write this column as a questioning of myself and why I believed Andy Pettitte–because I did.\u00a0 I\u00a0did not\u00a0question his sincerity one bit until my fiancee\u00a0called me a fool for not doing so.\u00a0 I was taken aback.\u00a0 “But, everything he said makes sense.\u00a0\u00a0What he did is\u00a0really not that bad,” I reasoned.\u00a0<\/p>\n “And, you believe it?”\u00a0Ina asked, with her\u00a0fine-tuned air of rhetoric.<\/p>\n “Uh, well…ya, I think so.”<\/p>\n I don’t blame Andy Pettitte for saying what he said.\u00a0 I am not even willing to say that I am absolutely certain that he isn’t being 100% truthful.\u00a0 In fact, I still want to believe him because he has never been anything but classy and professional.\u00a0 However, what I am saying is that the Steroid Era is still in its relative infancy, and these stories are just going to get better and better as we go.\u00a0 Let us just hope that the proverbial (and grossly overused term) “Court of Public Opinion” is able to adapt and keep up with the ever-improving spinsters that surround the users.\u00a0 Let us not forget that\u00a0knowingly having someone inject your rear-end with a performance-enhancing, illegally-acquired substance is NOT <\/em>an admirable act, no matter who\u00a0you are\u00a0or how justified you perceive your reasons for doing so to be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Honestly, I have no idea. What would you do if you were Andy Pettitte?\u00a0 You just signed a major contract to come back for one more year before retiring as one of the most successful pitchers of your generation.\u00a0 But, … Continue reading \n
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Now, the only thing lacking\u00a0may be credibility, so\u00a0you get a\u00a0highly-respected buddy of yours, like Mariano Rivera,\u00a0to back you up<\/a>.<\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/www.bicirace.com\/photo\/2005\/GeorgiaTour\/4\/TdgFloydLandisJerseySm.jpg\")
But, she is right.\u00a0 The “Steroid Era” is in full swing all across sports.\u00a0 The “spins” on ![](\"http:\/\/www.terra.com\/addon\/img\/deportes\/varios\/17f2dc3jones130p.jpg\")
positive tests are getting more and more refined as each person gets caught.\u00a0 Ben Johnson was first–his response was primitive.\u00a0 We have\u00a0progressed through Mark McGwire’s andro “it wasn’t illegal at the time” defense\u00a0to the awfulness that was Jason Giambi and his tearful “I can’t say for what, but I’m really, really\u00a0sorry” debacle<\/a>.\u00a0 Floyd Landis tried every spin in the book<\/a>, hoping one would stick.\u00a0 Marion Jones succeeded for 7 years in her denials and spin stories, until recently being stripped of her Olympic medals<\/a>.\u00a0 And now we have Andy Pettitte and the best, most refined, most evolved, most believable spin story yet.<\/p>\n