I've been relatively quiet on the steroids topic to date, but the announcement yesterday that named names--Jason Giambi, Barry Bonds, Benito Santiago, Gary Sheffield, Marvin Bernard and Randy Velarde--has made it clear that the matter of steroids and Major League Baseball has entered a new phase.  Now that we're seeing individuals linked to the seamy, still murky issue by name, it's becoming increasingly clear where all of this is headed.

The current investigation, directly surrounding BALCO, is almost assuredly a mere tip of the iceberg in the larger matter of performance enhancing substances and the alleged use of same by big league players.  Almost as interesting as the identification of some expected names--Giambi, Bonds and Sheffield--is the absence of others (Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Brady Anderson, etc.).  I will be shocked if those names don't surface prominently in an extension of this matter, if not tied directly to BALCO (after all, just because someone didn't get his steroids from BALCO doesn't mean he didn't get them from elsewhere, right?) then down the road, in some related discovery.   Right or wrong, this is inevitable; the snowball is already rolling down the slope.

A critical mass may not have formed yet among baseball fans clamoring that this issue must be dealt with, but if it hasn't (and it may already have, it's difficult to say), it soon will.  The amount of attention that the performance enhancing matter has garnered has hardly peaked; it's likely far from that point as steroids are just now taking on a meaningful identity as names are proffered.  We're going to hear more and more about this as time goes by, not less and it will be almost impossible for fans, even if they are predisposed to stick their head in the sand, to ignore it.  Significant questions about the legitimacy (that's the word that's being bandied about, directly or implicitly) of home run records that have been set over the past decade or so are already being raised by prominent members of the national sports media, casting a pall on some of the most significant accomplishments of recent baseball history.  The great home run chase between McGwire and Sosa in 1998--widely considered a seminal event in the recovery of baseball in the aftermath of the 1994-95 work stoppage--is now widely open to challenge among those wondering how much illegitimate "help" McGwire and Sosa might have received.  Ditto Bonds' record 73-home run season of 2001. 

At this point, it arguably doesn't matter whether chemical assistance was part of the package or not.  The specter of doubt has been raised--and will continue to be raised--so prominently that some degree of skepticism will almost certainly remain regardless of the outcome of any investigation.  People already were wondering about the physical metamorphosis of some of these players and now their doubts have been fed; those doubts are extremely unlikely to be quashed, particularly given the impossibility of proving a negative (prove to me that you weren't on steroids five years ago--go ahead).

In addition to all of this, we face the likelihood of all players being tarred as abusers, regardless of whether they were or not, based on the allegations leveled against a relatively small number--at least to date.  And this, somewhat paradoxically, may be the very factor that finally causes the situation to be addressed.

I think it's clear at this point that a meaningful plan to deal with the cloud of performance enhancing substances is going to have to originate at the grass roots--that is, players.

It would be a lot easier if the impetus for change came from the heads of the player's association because a move from the top would manifest itself much more quickly than any alternative.  Unfortunately, there is absolutely no sign that this will happen.  Contrary to the belief of some, Gene Orza and Donald Fehr aren't stupid people; quite the contrary, in fact.  But I would maintain, based on their response to this matter, that they are adopting a reactionary stance, as if they were dealing with an ordinary negotiating session with baseball's owners.  That's not what's going on here.  The owners, in fact, are almost as culpable as the MLBPA leadership in this matter (almost, but not quite).  While owners aren't fighting against the pressing crush of a meaningful testing program as the MLBPA heads are, they aren't exactly pushing to have this matter cleared up either.  Baseball owners appear hopeful, naively, that this whole thing will take care of itself and go away.  They appear no more interested in shining light on the matter than Orza and Fehr.  They won't stand in the way of change, so their obstructionist credentials aren't as vetted as those of the MLBPA leadership, but they are not sincerely trying to move the process along either.

Impetus for change, thus far, has come almost exclusively from the media and, perhaps to a very modest extent, baseball's fan base.  To date, this hasn't proven sufficient to even begin to produce meaningful change.  The recent announcement by President George W. Bush to hold a multi-sport summit at the White House to discuss the steroid issue is unlikely to help the cause for change and may, in fact, make things worse by explicitly politicizing the issue (it's an election year, for crying out loud, and Bush is an exceptionally polarizing figure these days).  A push for change may, however, come from the aforementioned players who are on the up-and-up but are being lumped with the users of performance enhancing substances.

Perhaps we're seeing the early signs of this bearing fruit as respected players like John Smoltz speak out in favor of clearing the air fully.  Last year, you may recall, the entire Chicago White Sox roster agreed to refuse to be tested as a way of triggering the minimum "positive" threshold (a refused test counted as a positive test) and force wider testing until the MLBPA leadership stepped in and pushed them to retract the mass refusal.  But it's clear that the seeds of doubt among individual players regarding the present course of the union's actions have been planted.  It remains to be seen if they can overcome the predisposition of their leadership to dig in their heels, regardless of the best interests of the majority of their members, to say nothing of the game itself.

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