Have you ever Googled yourself?
If you're bored, I fully recommend doing it. You'll find out things even your parents don't know about you.
For example, the entire NHL Internet community hates me because I wrote an article last year declaring the NHL dead.
There are entire message boards full of NHL fans doing everything from calling me stupid to challenging me to a fight.
Had I not Googled myself, I'd never know this.
I also discovered that I'm apparently on the fence when it comes to performance-enhancing drugs. Or at least, that's what procon.org says.
Procon.org is a non-profit organization that takes relevant topics and tries to present as many views as possible. Basically, they take as many articles they can find and present the authors' views on whatever subject they're researching.
Last year, they took up the question of performance-enhancing drugs in sports. Apparently, I wrote an article back in June of last year defending Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens' Hall of Fame candidacy.
I write a lot of stuff. Approximately 400 articles in the last two years. I can barely remember what I wrote last week, never mind last summer.
Luckily, procon.org had a nice quote that summed up the basic premise of the article:
"The part of me that wants to eliminate all cheating from sports, both pro and amateur, agrees with this. I want PEDs [performance-enhancing drugs] out of baseball, football, hockey, basketball, bowling, golf, NASCAR ... I even want it out of gymnastics, swimming, and curling.The realistic part of me knows that the scientists who are making the PEDs will always be a step ahead of the scientists who are testing them. After all, who do you think made more money? The guy who invented the Cream and the Clear, or the guy who helped the government figure out how to test for it?
Given that, is it really fair to tarnish Barry Bonds for doing something we're pretty sure a large percentage of the pitchers he was facing was also doing?
I understand that there are tests that detect most types of steroids. It's a no-brainer to include all of these types of PEDs on banned substance lists and to punish those who test positive for them. You can be relatively certain (as long as you're testing often enough) that only the players who test positive are using them, so it's perfectly fair to punish those who are caught.
But what about the PEDs you can't test for?
So, to sum this up: PEDs are cheating, players who use are scum and should be treated as such, but PEDs shouldn't be banned if we can't test for them."
Based on this quote and others from the article, procon.org has me listed as "Not clearly pro or con to the question 'Should performance-enhancing drugs (such as steroids) be accepted in sports?'"
If there's one thing I'm not, it's a fence-sitter.
I didn't say the NHL was struggling, I said it was dead. I didn't say the Cardinals were a mediocre Super Bowl team, I said they were the worst ever.
I'm opinionated. Overly so and to a fault.
Just ask my wife.
Keeping with that theme, let me make this 100% clear: performance-enhancing drugs should never be accepted in sports. They should absolutely be banned. Barry Bonds is a cheating scumbag. Roger Clemens is one of the worst human beings on the planet.
I am 100% against PEDs.
That said, I'm still uncomfortable with the testing procedures.
When a Jason Giambi can take HGH for years and never fail a test, there's something wrong (but hey, he's really sorry ... for something).
When some fringe minor leaguer has his career ruined because he doesn't have the money to get the good stuff and fails a test, while the high draft picks get the BALCO premium junk that can't be detected, there's a problem.
The point of my article last summer was that we don't know how many players are on steroids, so it's unfair to single out the ones who screwed up and got caught.
It's the steroid era, for crying out loud.
I want steroids, HGH, and any other performance-enhancing drug banned from all sports. Just as soon as we have a test that catches them reliably and a fair testing program that catches the Barry Bonds of the world just as easily as it catches the Sergio Mitres of the world.
What I'm saying is, rather than expending all this energy hating on the guys who were dumb enough or unlucky enough to get caught, let's put that energy towards building a fool-proof testing system that actually works.
Let's get PEDs out of professional sports once and for all.
Sean Crowe is the New England Patriots Examiner at Examiner.com. He writes a column every other Thursday for Sports Central. You can e-mail him at [email protected].
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