By Brad Locke
November 12, 2004

(AgapePress) - You want to know why the mystery around steroids in baseball may never be solved? Because there are too many people suppressing the evidence.

Despite what's been revealed by former players, grand jury testimony, leaked tapes and documents and simple observation of players' swelling physiques (see: Barry Bonds' head), until something undeniable (as if what we've seen already isn't) is presented before the players' union and the owners, nobody on the inside will admit that there is a major problem that threatens to drown baseball.

Where's Jimmy Hoffa? Probably behind some giant black curtain, Ozzing the Major League Baseball Players Association and posting a knee-breaker outside each owners' office. OK, maybe not, since the owners are as guilty of a cover-up as anyone. Their complicity was no more blatant than when they approved that spineless drug testing "policy" prior to the 2003 season. Besides, big players mashing big home runs equals big bucks. And owners have rarely let morals interfere with profit margins.

So we know the owners won't do anything, but there is a chance that some (clean) players could take a stand. Guys besides Jose Canseco and Ken Caminiti (RIP). Guys with credibility. Sure, John Smoltz and Curt Schilling have spoken out, but they're pitchers who stand to lose a lot at the hands of juiced-up hitters and could be accused of making excuses. So far, no active legitimate hitting star that I'm aware of has directly condemned steroid use and demanded strict testing and severe punishments. Until that happens -- if it ever does -- the charade will continue.

Or, imagine this, a current steroid-gulping player whom people respect 'fessing up and, if not naming names, at least confirming the breadth of the problem and pointing officials in the right direction.

What's keeping a player like this from stepping forward? Simple fear. Fear of being rejected by the fraternity, of being exiled from the union. That's a natural and understandable fear. Take the case of Damien Miller, one of those who dared to cross the picket line in 1994. He and others have been denied union benefits ever since, not to mention respect from other players. That is what happens to anyone who runs afoul of Donald Fehr and his minions.

Baseball players, and professional athletes in general, tend to abide by this twisted code of honor. The code is rooted in one simple principle: don't tattle on or "disrespect" your colleagues. If you do, prepare to suffer the consequences. It's a code of dishonor, a code that exalts blanket secrecy at any price, a code that makes no allowances for a Godly conscience. Players' mouths are occluded by this occultist mentality.

As God told the house of Judah in Zechariah 8:16-17: "Speak the truth to one another; render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace; do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath, for all these things I hate, declared the Lord." (Emphasis mine.)

I've always had this crazy notion that truth supercedes any and all man-made conventions. I simply want complete clarity about this situation. I know there are Christian baseball players who believe the same way I do and could provide that clarity: J.D. Drew, Albert Pujols and Bill Mueller, to name just three. They'd have all the credibility in the world to me if they came forth and revealed what they must certainly know about the extent of cheating in baseball. Should they end up fingering some illegally enhanced players, they'd take a ton of heat from, and it might even ruin their careers, but faith in God would carry them to a far better place than they could imagine. Easy for me to say, but it's about doing the right thing. By doing nothing, they're doing the wrong thing.

And like the players taking steroids and the owners who look the other way, they're just as guilty of ruining America's pastime.