[Silly Hypothetical] If Michael Jordan had only played baseball...

... Do you think he would have used PEDs?

I'll offer you a specific scenario: Michael Jordan has been cut from his high school varsity basketball team, and rather than dedicating himself to making his coach look stupid, he decides to focus on baseball instead. He plays extremely well, and is eventually drafted out of high school 7th overall by the Chicago White Sox in 1981.

By the start of the 1984 season, Jordan's been called up to the bigs and promptly beings destroying major league pitching. He's a five-tool outfielder, as talented as Barry Bonds and as beloved as Ken Griffey. He's a perennial all-star (heheheheh), wins multiple MVPs, and is to baseball what he was to basketball.

Now enter 1998. Jordan's 35, and while still a great player, he's clearly slowing down. He doesn't hit the ball as far, can't catch up to high-90s fastballs, and he isn't chasing down as many flyballs as he once did.

Meanwhile, the media (and all of America) is celebrating Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa's assault on the record books. Two clearly inferior talents, who everyone inside baseball know are chemically enhanced, are being hailed as the best players in the game and the saviors of baseball. Jordan seethes.

(And meanwhile in the NBA, everyone's still wearing nut-hugger shorts and a 19-year-old Kobe Bryant is often heard referring to himself as a "consummate professional heheheheheheh")

Knowing what we know about Jordan's personality, do you think he would give in to temptation and start juicing?

I was having this discussion with my buddy, and we both agreed that he probably would have. I think he'd be too worried about his legacy to be as blatant about it as Bonds, Sosa or McGwire (i.e., he would just try to maintain his earlier levels of production, as opposed to moving up 3 hat sizes), but he'd also be too competitive to help himself. He'd certainly have taken every possible measure to cover up for himself.

I bring this up because I think that the steroid era, along with closer media scrutiny, has often highlighted just how human and flawed many athletes are. However, despite his personal indiscretions Michael Jordan, thanks to his transcendent greatness, is generally still put on a pedestal. His legendary competitiveness, along with the fact that he actually played baseball, makes him a convenient example.

So do you think Jordan would have cheated? Is suggesting that he would have akin to telling a kid that Santa Claus doesn't exist?

(EDIT: Dun goofed up the poll. Sorry about that.)