Steroids — Add muscle, and destroy a game…

Being acquitted on all perjury charges, Roger Clemens' reputation may still be in doubt.  And that's very unfortunate.

The problem is that Baseball brought the whole steroid debacle upon itself — and then upon us all.

As long ago as 1999, when it seemed obvious that Mark McQuire had bulked up beyond reason and launched his name into the home run history books, the power-brokers of our national game could easily have done one simple thing.

They could have, and most definitely should have, from that moment, adopted an immediate zero tolerance policy for performance enhancing drugs, instituting an immediate and permanent ban on anyone caught abusing this policy.

Simple.  Obvious.  An easy way to enhance the future of the game.  "We won't ask what you did before, but get caught doing drugs now, and you're gone.  Period."

Nothing like this was done when it might have been, and now we are left with tarnished records and spoiled careers, where dramatic feats of polished athleticism will forever be encased in a dingy and tacky shellac of disappointment and doubt  -- a moldering veneer over an entire era of what used to be green and often glorious fields of dreams.

Many great players never touched steroids.  Perhaps Mr. Clemens is one of them.  But everyone's been tainted because a clear and definitive policy wasn't rapidly enacted.