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davidcyclebackHollywood celebrities have lost commercial contracts because they had flings outside their marriages. Burt Reynolds lost an orange juice contract because of his love life.
I agree Vick is legally not guilty until proven guilty, and it's unfair and unwise to have judged guilt before at least hearing both sides. It's hard to judge the evidence if you haven't heard it yet.
The problem for athletes, especially innocent ones, is that in steroids cases (with a relatively minor penalty) almost all athletes automatically deny taking them to their last breath even when the did use them-- often even when they after they've tested positive. Thus, an innocent player shouldn't so much blame sports fans for not believing their statement of innocence. He should blame his fellow athletes who have a habit of lying to the sports fans. Sports fans lament they cannot identify the innocent athletes, but they also know the reason know they cannot identify the innocent ones is because many athletes lie.
Many expect fans to act like judges, but they really act like statisticians. "If X number of players lied to us before, what is the probability this guy here is telling us the truth?" For the average fan, the more players' lies in the past, the less the probability a player is telling the truth now. A lawyer might lament the thinking, but a statistician might perceive it as a good question.
If you ask a statistician "How many people are innocent until proven guilty?," he might say, "53.25 percent." If you tell him, "No, the answer is 'all,'" he might assume your calculator was missing the batteries when you did that calculation.