Roger Clemens Fallout: Where Baseball Goes from Here

People want Roger Clemens' 354 wins and 4,672 strikeouts stricken from the record books.

People want Barry Bonds' home run record to carry the weight of an asterisk.

People want to keep Mark McGwire out of the Hall of Fame.

Those desires all have two things in common:

1) They all grew out of reaction to stories about these athletes' steroid use.

2) People will never get what they want.

The fact is that Bud Selig has taken too long to decide upon a rightful punishment for those connected with steroids. If he wanted to make an impact, he should have made an example of Jose Canseco long before the fiasco spun out of control.

Canseco is the self-proclaimed "Godfather of Steroids." Just after the MLB drug policy was implemented, Canseco released the controversial memoir Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big.

The book documented the alleged use of steroids throughout baseball, and included Canseco's own admissions of dealing and doing the juice.

As an admitted steroid user, Canseco provided Selig with the perfect target. The Commissioner didn't have to wait for a jury to prove Canseco's guilt—he could have done anything he wanted with Canseco's statistics, and no one would have raised an eyebrow.

Canseco's 40/40 season, his 462 home runs, and his 1,407 RBI could all have been expunged from baseball history, or branded with asterisks. His MVP award could have been rescinded, his Rookie of the Year revoked, and his World Series rings steamrolled—and everyone would have thought, "It's the right thing to do."

But we all know that if ifs and buts were candies and nuts...well, we wouldn't have world hunger, but we'd be putting more money into research on childhood obesity, to say nothing of the juvenile cavity rate.

In any event, where does Selig go from here?

Well, he could start by stopping the witch hunt.

It's common knowledge that steroids played a role in baseball in the last decade. All you're doing by naming more names is hurting the game even further...when it should be seeking a recovery plan.

The second step is to acknowledge that the MLB and MLBPA made a mistake in not taking action years ago. Take a lesson from Andy Pettitte and Brian Roberts—you'd be surprised how far an apology can get you.

And third? Declare that the seasons from 1994 to 2004 will henceforth be known as the "Steroid Era"...and then leave them be.

If you start erasing numbers and adding asterisks, you aren't only altering the players' stats, but the teams' records as well. What's more, you'd ultimately have to completely nullify a player's career year, and perhaps force him to pay back a percentage of a contract he signed as a free-agent.

We're basically talking about striking a whole 10-year period from baseball's history, maybe more.

Suddenly an apology doesn't seem so difficult, huh?

The point is that the blame game has to stop somewhere, and baseball has to start to repair itself. But it has to be a team effort.

After all, Jose Canseco showed us what happens when you play only for yourself.