Baseball dragging feet on steroids

Bud Selig, the commissioner of Major League Baseball, says he can't do anything about the Barry Bonds situation because he hasn't read the book yet.

"The book itself doesn't come out until the end of the month," he said.

Now we know why baseball finds itself in its current mess. Memo to Selig: Two words — ADVANCE COPY. Pick up the phone, call Gotham Books — they're in the book, under "G" — tell them you're the commissioner of the once-great game of baseball and ask for the book immediately.

On the other hand, what else does he need to know that hasn't already been released?

This has been baseball's M.O. from the start: Wait and see. From Selig to the players association, baseball deserves everything that's coming down on them at the moment. They brought this on themselves.

They have acted with sloth-like speed to the steroid problem for years. Watching them slowly awaken to the seriousness of their problem and the need for a serious, tough drug policy over the past decade has been like watching grass grow, only slower. It took the combined effort of books, snitches, death, sensational accusations, congressional hearings, threats and confessionals to inch baseball slowly toward a genuine drug policy late last year.

After a while, you wondered if they were waiting until they actually saw a player standing on second base sticking a needle in his buttocks before they took action. All baseball ever did was deny or apply a small band-aid on a big problem while the players lied and lied. The same league that has sent Pete Rose to baseball purgatory for gambling, took years to act on a serious drug problem.

As recently as 2002, players weren't even tested for steroids. It wasn't until 2003 that there was any punishment for steroid use, and then it was only a slap on the wrist. All the evidence was ignored.

For four decades nobody made a serious threat to Roger Maris' single-season home run record of 61 set in 1961. Then in one five-year period, from 1997 to 2001, Bonds, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire broke the record six times. Luis Gonzales, Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez and McGwire (again) came close, hitting between 56 and 58 home runs five times during that period.

Until the Steroid Era arrived, every entry on the top 10 list for most homers in a single season occurred between 1920 and 1961. From 1997 to 2001, three players cracked the top 10 a total of seven times, taking the top six spots.

Baseball did nothing.