E-Mail This Article to a Friend Steroids frauds find themselves on pins and needles BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

Can you stand one more commentary about baseball’s steroids scandal? If not, then I hope you’ll tune back in on Monday. Otherwise, let’s discuss.

Back on March 1, I wrote a column about all-around good guy Barry Bonds, and wondered how history would treat him given the swirling winds of suspicion surrounding his denial of steroid use. Despite the fact that I despise the guy, I stood up for him, and claiming that ". . . unless evidence is submitted that Bonds has been lying to us for all these many years about his steroid abstinence, then we will have to take him at his word — and continue to marvel at the man’s accomplishments."

Well, now that the San Francisco Chronicle has published grand-jury testimony confirming our suspicions about Jason Giambi’s use, we have also found out that Bonds (despite those public denials) testified that he unwittingly took steroids masked by a cream that he believed was merely a balm for his arthritis. I didn’t know it was steroids; I thought it was flaxseed oil. This is the same Bonds who, when asked by ESPN’s Jim Gray last year if it was possible he could have inadvertently used the banned substances, glowered at Gray, then tap-danced around the question before answering, "No, it’s not possible."

Yankees slugger Gary Sheffield, like Bonds, also claimed that he didn’t know that the cream he was using contained hidden steroids, but really, why wouldn’t these guys find out beforehand? After all, Olympic athletes are constantly aware of anything that goes into their bodies, because any mistake could cause a positive drug test resulting in suspension or a forfeiture of a medal. Baseball has but one banned substance, and it’s steroids; wouldn’t you, fearful of being nailed for usage of that one forbidden chemical, be more than a little leery of what you take?

The Giambi brothers: guilty. Jose Canseco: ditto. Ken Caminiti and Lyle Alzado: guilty, and dead. Sheffield and Bonds: guilty either of stupidity or premeditated cheating, or both.

Then you have the guys who have always been under suspicion for steroid use because of their turbo-speed performance improvements: Mark McGwire (his 70-HR season in 1998 at age 34 blasted the HR record that had not been approached since 1961); Sammy Sosa (36 HRs in 1997; 66 a season later); Brady Anderson (15 HRs in 1995; 50 the following year). Notice the similar time period involved?

I apparently was wrong about Bonds, and despite evidence to the contrary — his oversized head, a bounce from 49 HRs to 73 in one season (2000-’01) — believed that he was merely a remarkable player. Now that record-breaking 2001 season should be regarded as a sham, as should perhaps McGwire’s and Sosa’s accomplishments in that magical 1998 season, when they combined for 136 home runs in shattering Roger Maris’s existing single-season mark of 61. Even Bonds’s pursuit of Hank Aaron’s lifetime standard of 755 homers is viewed with a dubious eye, and as Bonds approaches that record in the coming years, fans will have to make a choice between recognizing and toasting the accomplishment, or ignoring the impending record because Bonds allegedly cheated en route. How do you think Aaron will feel, and how do you think the relatives of Maris feel about their guy now that his mark has been (perhaps) unfairly relegated to baseball’s scrap heap of broken records?

What of Giambi? Now that he’s confirmed it (albeit only behind a courthouse’s closed doors and under the impression his words would never get out), how can Sox fans forget how history might have changed a year earlier if the admitted con artist had not hit two solo home runs off Pedro Martinez in game seven of the 2003 ALCS? After those heroics, Giambi apparently got off the stuff, lost his bulk and about 25 pounds, and has suffered the same mysterious maladies associated with steroid use that ultimately killed Alzado, the former NFL star. The Yankees are on the hook to Giambi for four more years and $76 million, even though the guy they signed for seven years and $120 million back in 2001 is a mere shadow of himself now. Not surprisingly, the team is still doing all it can to get out of its commitment to the (former) slugger.

And what of McGwire? He’s up for election to the Hall of Fame in 2007, and whether it was "andro" or actual steroids, will his 583 home runs stand up to scrutiny, especially when an amazing 306 of those were hit in his last six seasons (out of a 16-year career) of action?

Those were heady times for baseball fans back in the late ’90s, but now that we know the truth, we’ve come to realize, in Terry Jacks’s words, "We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun, but the stars we could reach were just starfish on the beach."

Today’s lesson: be careful in what, and whom, you believe.

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com, and Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com