So now Bud Selig believes steroid cheats have "shamed the game" of baseball?

Way to take a stand, Bud.

Only took you two years, 11 months, a week and an embarrassing steroidal admission from baseball's "great clean Yankee hope," Alex Rodriguez, to finally utter a hollow reprimand about what everybody else recognized as a credibility blow to your sport a long time ago. Or did you forget that almost three years ago Sports Illustrated had another steroid bombshell that you ignored?

An excerpt from "Game of Shadows" had revealed Barry Bonds' brazen and prolific use of the cream and the clear (designer steroids), insulin, HGH, testosterone decanoate, a cattle steroid and the fertility drug Clomid, all of which were handily tracked by his "trainer" and BALCO boss Victor Conte. And corroborated by grand-jury testimony.

What baseball fans were waiting for was a reaction. From you.

I wrote a big-girl column back then, so full of righteous indignation and stupid, youthful naivete I am a little embarrassed. I foolishly expected you to act like a commissioner and fix this problem.

Which is why this is no longer about Bonds.

He has shown us what he is.

What this Bonds story is about now is if baseball commish Bud Selig finally has the guts to say, "Enough."

Of course, you did not, still did not. You did nothing except sit in a luxury box and watch as Hank Aaron's home run record—probably sports' greatest mark—became Bonds' legacy.

So the shame is yours, Bud.

You are the one who truly embarrassed the game, by refusing to do your job, by standing idly by as performance-enhancing drugs tainted the legacy of greats like Aaron and Roger Maris forever and by gleefully shoving long ball-generated profits into your pockets.

Players have done a good job of embarrassing baseball as well, usually before Congress, with Roger Clemens and his "misremembered" fiasco and Raffy and his hypocritical finger-wagging and Mark McGwire and his forward-thinking approach to under-oath Congressional testimony and on and on.

Big numbers and bigger contracts were driven by illegal, without-a-prescription drugs most fans were unable to pronounce, and countless nameless players lined up to have syringes jammed into their butts and God knows what ingested into their systems.

All while pretending this was a matter of them training harder or their very clean diets.

Owners were guilty, too, since I highly doubt Giants owner Peter McGowan called and begged for this scourge of steroids to be addressed while sellout crowds were paying to watch his sorry team, thanks to Bonds.

And I also understand the players' union has a big hand in this embarrassment, and that Don Fehr is a jerk of the highest order. They fought steroid testing and steroid punishment for forever.

And maybe, there was nothing you could have done.

But can you say you really fought them? Or when Bonds crossed home plate that you had done everything in your power to try to stop this travesty?

You were in a position to stop this or, at very least, hike up your big-boy pants and do something other than shrug and raise a white flag. What makes it worse is I am pretty sure you cared.

I think it matters to you that baseball became a joke under your watch. I think you wanted to do the right thing; you were just too weak. Instead, what we got was after-the-fact shameless grandstanding by your spineless co-conspirator self.

I gagged last week when I heard you said A-Fraud and every other steroid user had shamed the game, like this was somehow news to you.

"What Alex did was wrong and he will have to live with the damage he has done to his name and reputation" were your exact words.

And you are right, sort of.

Alex has to live with the damage he did to his name and rep.

What you have to live with, Bud, is the damage you did to the game and its relationship with its fans.

We look at every player, every record, every home run and wonder, "Is he using?" Denials mean nothing because so many players have been proven to be liars and cheats.

Oh, people still go to games. I do.

I still like baseball but not with the same passion when I wrote that column three years ago.

I wrote that day, not as a jaded sports columnist, but as a fan, begging you to banish Bonds and bring integrity back to your sport.

But you are losing me, Bud.

You are losing me because what I read about Bonds is no longer surprising at all.

What would be surprising is if you finally did something about it. This is about you now, and it is your last chance to make it right."

You did not.

So shame on you, Bud.