Mike Celizic

The FBI is calling in superstar athletes to help in their investigation of a Canadian doctor whose assistant was caught bringing human growth hormone and another illegal drug into the United States.

Dr. Anthony Galea is held by his defenders to be the Mozart of sports medicine, able to create symphonies of healing where other doctors can’t come up with the first four bars of a sonata. This reputation has attracted some of the mightiest names in sports to his door, including Tiger Woods, Alex Rodriguez and Jose Reyes. All went to Galea for treatments that supposedly speed the healing process.

The doctor apparently got results, which explains the procession of athletes. But when the feds found the HGH, it was only natural to wonder whether that hormone had something to do with Galea’s remarkable success.

It has also made a lot of people wonder whether athletes are capable of learning even the simplest lessons of history. Galea has long been suspected of not playing fair, which is what happens when you get results that nobody else does. That doesn’t mean he was cheating. But in today’s atmosphere of suspicion, why would anyone even risk the association?

That’s an easy one to answer: because the athletes think Galea can make them recover faster; they think he can help them beat the competition.

This happens to be the same reason athletes cheat, and it shows that in the mind of an athlete, cheating is a relative term. There is no morality to it for the cheaters. Rather, it’s about what the rules are and what is the likelihood of getting caught. To them, it’s not cheating if you don’t get caught.

So when baseball officially banned performance-enhancing drugs but didn’t bother to test for them, major-leaguers wolfed down steroids because people who used steroids hit more home runs and threw harder fastballs. If baseball didn’t want them to use steroids, why didn’t the game test for them?

It’s only when testing started that players quit using. But it didn’t mean they stopped searching for an edge. These are guys who employ personal trainers. They work out year-round and eat scientifically designed diets. They get laser surgery to improve their vision to where it’s twice as sharp as a perfect 20-20. They have swing coaches, running coaches, throwing coaches. They gobble vitamins and supplements. They steal signs and signals.

And they flock to guys like Galea. And if the good doctor says he’s not doing anything illegal, that’s good enough for them. If it weren’t, they’d tell their teams who they’re going to see, and they’re not.

The Yankees and the Mets are upset with A-Rod and Reyes, in fact. You would be, too, if you’re highly-paid superstar went to a doctor whose methods and ethics have been questioned. Teams don’t want their players undergoing experimental treatments anymore than you want your 15-year-old taking your car for a joyride while you’re away at church.

The players know they’re supposed to inform their teams before they get their own medical treatments. But these guys ignored that obligation, almost certainly because they were afraid their teams would veto the idea.

There is no evidence that Galea gave any of his famous clients HGH or any other illegal drug. And the FBI, which wants to question A-Rod, isn’t charging him with any crime.

But whether the players did anything illegal is almost irrelevant. The facts are that they were willing to sneak off to a doctor of questionable reputation for experimental therapies. The facts are they were and are willing to do anything to beat the competition.

All they want is someone’s assurance that it’s legal. Whether it actually is legal isn’t important. If it were, the players would have asked their teams about seeking out Galea. They would have asked Major League Baseball about him.

Someday soon, if it hasn’t happened already, athletes will be able to undergo gene therapy to increase their muscles and reflexes and speed. It will probably be undetectable.

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A lot of athletes won’t think of it, just as many don’t want to have anything to do with PEDs. But a substantial number are so competitive, they will shell out vast amounts of money to get their genes turbocharged. Not to beat on A-Rod, but he’s a guy who was acknowledged to be the most talented player in the game, and maybe the best ever, and he still felt a need to take steroids to be even better than the best.

So don’t ever think that we’re free from PEDs. We may be out of the steroid jungle, but there’s the HGH forest right overhead and the gene-therapy thicket straight ahead and who knows what else beyond that.

That’s the lesson from the Galea case. It’s not that players want to cheat, but that they want to win. They’ll do anything to accomplish that end. It doesn’t have to actually be legal. They just have to think it is.

It’s called plausible deniability. It’s never going away.

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