The time has come to come clean about Major League Baseball, the use of steroids and other performance enhancing substances, and how the game must immediately change in order to deal with this scandal of gargantuan proportions.

Step one is to admit that if we take into consideration every single shred of circumstantial and proven evidence, there is no doubt professional baseball is and has been for some time rife with the use of steroids, HGH, hormone therapy, uppers, downers, cocaine, banana peel, little diet pills, you name it.

The baseball used in every logo should be amended to have the word “Upjohn” stamped on both sides.

Step two is to admit that dating back to the very first instant one baseball player slipped something other than a shot of whiskey or cold beer past his lips, the holy statistics have included something more than mere talent. Modern chemistry in every era helped to hit home runs, on and off the field.

Step three is to realize professional baseball players and, to a greater extent their fellow athletic brethren, are just like the rest of us. Everybody lies, some better than others.

They will look you in the eye and swear on the souls of their children and/or mistresses they have never taken anything stronger than a breath mint knowing full well they would qualify for a pharmaceutical pad of their very own.

And the final step would be to realize the single most important factor when it comes to bringing about the sweeping change baseball obviously needs to clean up the game once and for all, preserving the historical integrity of the American pastime.

Do. Absolutely. Nothing.

This maddening and hysterical hyperbole over drug use in baseball must stop once and for all. Screaming headlines demanding someone be held accountable and the game must be cleaned up need to be stuffed into a time capsule.

No more bubble-headed bleach-blonde news or sports anchors trying desperately to pronounce the medicinal name of banned substances.

The logic is impossible to argue with. No matter how many big name players are caught, no matter how many time we hear players professing their innocence only to be nailed by either real evidence or the court of public opinion, and no matter how many hallowed records are brought into question, one truth remains.

The average baseball fan doesn’t care. Just look at how attendance has been increasing steadily in these steroid years. Souvenir sales are up. Regional TV ratings have improved considerably. An obvious signal that no matter how many cheats there are and how many records are soiled, the public will still show their tacit approval by shelling out the cash.

The media, once charged with being the conscience of their viewers, readers and listeners, rarely report what they hear inside the locker rooms despite seeing pill bottles and hearing players whisper.

Most are honest people who do it because to turn investigative could cost them their job, thanks to team reps charged with deciding only those who help the lies along get to keep their press pass. Others are just too happy to stick a tape recorder in the face of their boyhood hero to tell the truth.

And baseball itself could care less about doing anything to honestly clean up their game. Why clean up something that remains so lucrative and is given such a wide berth from the truth?

Cleaning something up is only necessary if it’s dirty, AND someone really wants to wipe away the grime and slime.

Thus, hasn’t the evidence proven the game is just fine the way it is?

Read more from Ed Berliner and hear exclusive interviews from reporters, commentators, analysts and authors on every sport at "Stone Cold Sports". http://stonecoldsports.com