Would you still watch the NBA if the players could jump 15 feet in the air? Of course you would, because let's face it, the only reason we watch the NBA now is because the players jump higher and move faster than people like us ever could.
So what's wrong with a substance that allows athletes to recover faster, jump higher, lift more, and hit more home runs. Sure, there is no "natural" way to do this, but what is natural? Were the ancient Greeks really working out with weights for four hours a day? If we really want natural, we should force athletes to have normal jobs and never practice their sport. We have the most perfectly trained athletes ever to exist, why not just take perfection one step further?
Obviously, I'm talking about anabolic steroids, the miracle drug of the future. Now I'm not saying you should run down to Mexico and buy a carton or anything, I would probably be sued by some poor mother for something like that. Besides, steroids do have legitimately harmful side effects (turn on ESPN for 10 minutes and I guarantee you'll hear at least three of them). Instead, I think that we should safely begin to investigate ways to create perfect athletes.
I imagine the sports of the future having partnerships between athletes and teams with drug companies. If Nascar drivers can have contracts with Ford and Chevy, why can't the St. Louis Rams have a deal with Pfizer? If Michael Schumacher and Ferrari can dominate formula one, what's wrong with Barry Bonds and BALCO dominating baseball? There would be a huge pouring of cash into research for better and safer drugs (no one wants to maim their star athletes).
My guess is within five years we would have a breed of super-athletes so superior that every major sport would be completely unrecognizable. The golden age of sports would be back. It would be like Captain America was playing every position.
We could still have leagues of "normal" players, the way we have college sports today. I'm sure there would be lots of crazy old men who would lament about the fate of the sporting world, as well as claiming that Bill Russell would still dominate basketball today, but they're crazy, so that's fine.
The added benefit here is that with this research done, the same techniques could be used for the rest of us. Imagine a world where everyone had superhuman strength and speed (everyone except the poor suckers who play sports in the normal leagues). So let's get steroids out of the closets and into the lab.
I think our society could be improved by a solid 35 percent if we brought steroids into the mainstream. This could do for America what Ivan Drago did for Soviet Russia. This idea can't possibly go wrong.
