Mad World
Major League Hypocrisy
By Mark Madden

If Major League Baseball really wants the lowdown on the steroid era, it needs to solicit information from people with nothing to lose.

Don't grill Jason Giambi. Not while he has a huge contract that can be voided.

Ask Brady Anderson. The former Baltimore outfielder was, by all accounts, a steroid pioneer, using a suddenly buff physique to pound 50 home runs in 1996. Anderson's previous career high for jacks was 21 and his career total was 210 in 15 seasons.

Don't interrogate Sammy Sosa's interpreter, not while Sosa has hopes-however futile-to get into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Ask Juan Gonzalez. The two-time American League MVP was recently labeled a steroid user by Texas owner Tom Hicks. Performance-enhancing drugs may have inflated Gonzalez' muscles and stats, but also likely contributed to a series of injuries that ended his career.

Anderson and Gonzalez aren't going to Cooperstown. Their careers are over. They might not talk. But we'll never know if nobody asks.

Better yet, believe Jose Canseco. Canseco wrote a steroid Bible for the Mitchell Committee, yet all baseball does is blaspheme his name.

Discussion of baseball's steroid issue makes me cringe. Most of the experts don't get it, never mind the hoi polloi. They don't understand the timeline, the psychology. They don't understand the difference between a rule and a law. They can't properly define the word cheating.

It's pathetic. Uneducated. Reminiscent of McCarthyism, especially when it comes to the persecution of Barry Bonds (and the racially-motivated amnesty given Roger Clemens).

On a recent episode of ESPN Radio's Mike & Mike morning show, Mike Greenburg blurted out the truth.

Mike Golic asked what good would be done if every baseball player who ever used steroids was exposed. Greenburg said, "Well, look what happened to Mark McGwire." Here's what happened to McGwire: After his stuttering, stumbling de facto self-incrimination in front of Congress, McGwire's reputation was shattered.

Is that good? Did McGwire deserve that? Are we that vindictive?

McGwire broke no rules. He made a personal choice, albeit one many disagree with. Are the old white records really so important that protecting them is worth shredding somebody's existence?

The goal of baseball's steroid crusade shouldn't be looking back in anger. One goal should be comprehensive testing while understanding that the pharmacists are always going to be ahead of the cops. The other goal should be alerting players to the health risks of steroid use.

Have you ever heard the latter even mentioned? I haven't. This is all about Babe Ruth. As we speak, Commissioner Bud Selig is blackmailing players to coerce them to talk to the Mitchell Committee.

It appears that breaking the law by using steroids is a terrible thing, but OK for the commissioner of baseball to railroad players into forgoing their right to avoid self-incrimination.

Then you've got the clowns who say, over and over again, like a mantra, "Steroids are wrong." Well, I say they're right. How dare you impose your morality on me? If there was a pill that would make me the best sports talk-show host in the world but kill me at 55, I'd take it. That would be my choice.

Good thing I don't need it.

Mark Madden hosts a sports talk show 3-7 p.m. weekdays on ESPN Radio 1250.