A-Rod steroid shake-up

You know the rest: Federal agents, while investigating BALCO, discovered the list of 104 players who tested positive. Surprise! The names are starting to leak, with Rodriguez's being the first.

A-Rod bears responsibility for testing positive, but his dirty little secret would have remained private if not for the union's negligence. When some or all of the other players on the list are identified, they can thank the union, too.

The bottom line: We should never have learned that A-Rod tested positive, but now we know. His image, the union's image and MLB's image will not easily recover, no matter how much spin they all apply.

Can't wait to hear if A-Rod uses the "Andy Pettitte defense" — "I only did it once!" Perhaps he will simply arrive at spring training and give the cheater's copout, announcing, "Baseball questions only."

Rodriguez's agent, Scott Boras, said that even if the SI.com report were true, Boras said, "it was one season and since then Alex has gotten the good-housekeeping seal the last five years."

Meaning, A-Rod must be clean, because he hasn't tested positive for steroids since '03. As if it were that simple. As if players did not use undetectable substances such as human growth hormone. Please.

The truth is, this will never end. There will be no "Mission Accomplished" banner for MLB, no news conference at which Commissioner Bud Selig can honestly proclaim, "The problem has been eliminated."

The game probably is cleaner now than it was, say, from 1998 to 2003; some players, at least for the moment, are scared of testing positive. But fans should not trust that any professional sport, including the almighty NFL, is drug-free.

I've written before that perhaps the Steroid Era will be viewed differently in 10, 20 or 30 years. Fans, judging from attendance, are hardly outraged by PED use. They might grow downright accepting when genetic engineering and other scientific developments produce further "advances."

In the end, the bigger problem might be defining the era, giving it perspective. As we learned again Saturday, we still don't know who did what, and to what end. All we know is that nothing surprises us anymore, nothing at all.