[media-credit name=’Paul Sakuma/Associated Press’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]Well, it’s all out in the open now. With the publication of Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi’s grand jury testimony, major league baseball can finally stop pretending its players are clean. After years of unchecked steroid use, it’s time for baseball to enact a meaningful steroid policy. But don’t count on it.

“I don’t want to say it’s not possible, I just can’t guarantee it.” Gene Orza, the chief operating officer of the players’ union, told the Associated Press regarding the possibility of the league instituting a new steroid policy after the release of Bonds and Giambi’s admissions of steroid use.

Well, that’s reassuring. Of course, this should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed baseball over the last few years. Despite constant speculation about possible (read: extremely likely) steroid use among players who have grown into muscle-bound mutants fit for the pages of a Stan Lee comic, Selig and the boys did nothing to curtail the steroid epidemic. Why should we expect anything to change now that the general public has become privy to what baseball insiders have undoubtedly known for years?

The San Francisco Chronicle’s recent revelations are unlikely to yield new baseball legislation because nothing has actually changed. Players have used steroids for years. Baseball officials have known about it for years. And for years, they have done nothing.

Don’t believe me? Just ask Chicago White Sox general manager Kenny Williams, who told the Associated Press that he has included steroid use among the factors he uses to evaluate personnel.

“That’s part of the equation,” Williams said. “If you have not thought about it in recent years, you’ve had your head buried in the sand. That just kind of goes along right into the pot along with scouting reports, how he is in the clubhouse…”

Thanks to the efforts of the players’ union, baseball has never had a serious steroid policy. The current policy, which was not enacted until this season, is an absolute joke. The penalty for a player who tests positive for steroids is treatment and counseling. Not a suspension, but counseling.

If a player hasn’t learned his lesson after a few counseling sessions, the penalty for a second positive test is a 15-game suspension. Yes, 15 games for getting caught using steroids twice. That’s 11 percent of the 165-game schedule. A player who has tested positive for steroids twice can still play in 89 percent of his team’s games that season.

In order to receive a one-year suspension, a player has to test positive five times. Of course, with the system calling for just one test per season, it will take years of steroid use to rack up five positive tests. And even then, the player is eligible to suit up the following year and go for No. 6.

To be fair, the players’ association has recently agreed to discuss a proposal to institute more testing and prohibit additional substances. But let’s face it, Donald Fehr and Co. have repeatedly shown that they have no interest in policing steroid use. This concession was simply a PR move aimed at convincing the public that the group which claims to represent the players is willing to consider taking small steps toward preventing the erosion of the game’s integrity. If the players’ union signs off on a new policy, it will do so grudgingly.

Over the years, the players’ association has been terribly effective at protecting steroid users. No major league player has ever been suspended for using steroids, which is pretty impressive considering that Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, Ken Caminiti and Jose Canseco have all admitted to using steroids, with Caminiti estimating that over half the league was on ‘roids way back in 1996.

Of course, an admission of steroid-use is not grounds for any official punishment according to MLB policy. The only way to become eligible for suspension is to fail a drug test.

Lucky for the steroid users, an MLB drug test is not very hard to pass. BALCO founder Victor Conte recently declared on national television that his clients have been using drugs that consistently passed Olympic drug tests, which are exponentially more extensive than those used in professional baseball. If these drugs are undetectable in Olympic testing, they certainly won’t show up in the MLB tests.

“It’s like taking candy from a baby,” Conte said in a recent appearance on 20/20.

And he was talking about passing the Olympic tests. Getting past MLB testing is like taking candy from a fetus.

Until the MLB steroid policy is changed dramatically, the only thing keeping a major league player from using performance-enhancers is his conscience. So far, the honor system doesn’t seem to be keeping too many sluggers from turning to the juice.

It has come to the point that Congress has offered to step in and propose federal legislation to govern baseball since the game has clearly demonstrated an inability to govern itself. If steroid use is allowed to continue unchecked, the integrity of the game will continue to deteriorate and baseball will evolve into a chemistry contest.

Steroid technology has become far too advanced to be brushed under the table. The concoctions of people like Conte do not simply provide a marginal boost; these substances can transform an individual from the middle of the pack to the upper echelon.

Conte explained on national television that his concoctions transformed sprinter Kelli White into an Olympic champion. White herself revealed that Conte’s drugs made her into the superhuman creation that won Olympic gold.

Conte and White explained that they embarked on their Olympic chemistry project because of widespread use of performance-enhancing supplements in Olympic competition. White believed she could not compete against a field of steroid users unless she used steroids herself.

After winning the gold, a remarkable thing happened: White’s guilt outweighed her excitement. Rather than taking the traditional victory lap White trudged off the track in shame, haunted by the fact that she had cheated her way to the top of the podium.

She decided to come clean, attributing her success to the remarkably effective concoctions of Victor Conte. In an appearance on 20/20, White revealed that Conte’s formulas gave her such a tremendous advantage over the competition that it was simply “too easy” to win races. After transforming herself into a superhuman sprinter, there was no glory in her fraudulent victory.

Conte claims that he made Tim Montgomery into the world’s fastest man using similar methods. If what Conte says is true, the Olympic Games are currently decided by teams of chemists, not the athletes that benefit from their formulas.

“In short, the Olympic Games are a fraud,” Conte told 20/20.

And the same may be true of professional baseball. If Selig and the boys don’t act soon, the national pastime will become a battle waged in laboratories rather than ballparks.

Men like Victor Conte have suggested that an even playing field still exists, simply on a higher plane of competition. Conte argues that if everyone uses steroids, no one is gaining an unfair advantage.

However, this logic holds true only if every player uses comparable performance-enhancers. If the league wishes to make steroid-use a part of baseball, it could theoretically create an equitable system by defining exactly what performance-enhancers players are permitted to ingest, just as NASCAR places certain parameters on the specifications for its cars’ engines. Thus, the league could retain its hulkish sluggers while maintaining an even playing field.

However, even this system would require effective testing and meaningful punishment for those who exceed the defined parameters. Without an effective policy to deter players from using restricted substances, the national pastime will become nothing more than a high-priced science fair.

In the end, Conte’s vision of an elevated yet even playing field is flawed. Even if closely patrolled, the use of steroids will ultimately corrupt the game. Like all athletic contests, baseball was intended to be a display of human skill and athleticism, not a demonstration of the effects of laboratory science. Call me a purist, but a competition between artificial superhuman creations just doesn’t seem like baseball.