Steroid secrets

Another brick was laid in the wall this week — the massive wall of evidence that baseball was riddled with steroids for more than a decade.

The latest shoe was dropped by an otherwise obscure clubhouse assistant for the Mets named Kirk Radomski.

From 1985 to 1995, his day job was working as a bat boy and equipment manager. On the side, according to his guilty plea in federal court on Friday, he sold anabolic steroids, amphetamines and human growth hormone to dozens of Major League players.

It’s hard to be shocked at any of this anymore. But Radomski’s plea bargain looks like the tip of a very big syringe.

Radomski’s case was handled in San Francisco and yes, it is part of the infamous BALCO scandal. BALCO, of course, is the infamous Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative that is strongly suspected of bulking up Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, et al with a chemical cocktail of performance-enhancing drugs.

Lots of jocks breathed easier when they learned that none of Radomski’s client’s names were revealed in his plea agreement. Those same sluggers, however, might be experiencing some shortness of breath when they read that Radomski has agreed to cooperate with federal and baseball investigators still trying to unravel Steroidgate.

As Travis Tygart, senior managing director and general counsel for the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, told the Associated Press, “If you’re a player that was using and receiving steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs from Radomski, I think you are pretty nervous right now.”

Let’s hope so. The feds have been trying hard to deconstruct BALCO for several years. Major League baseball was far more reluctant to admit there was an elephant in the locker room. Lately, however, it is ramping up its efforts with a study led by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell.

While all this is going on, of course, Bonds is getting closer and closer to becoming the game’s all-time home run champ. He has 741 as of this writing and needs 15 to pass Hammerin’ Hank Aaron. That’s about a month-and-a-half of slugging for Bonds.

Looking at the Giants’ schedule, we see that they host the mighty Yankees on June 22, 23 and 24, a Friday-Saturday-Sunday series. I think it’s safe to say that the series will receive white-hot media attention if Bonds is on the verge of hitting No. 756 by then.

The Giants play my beloved Cardinals on July 6, 7 and 8, another Friday-Saturday-Sunday series, but the thing should be over by then.

The All Star Game is in, of all places, San Francisco this year on Tuesday, July 10. That guarantees more Barrymania in a sport that is desperately trying to pretend this nightmare isn’t happening.

How fitting that the steroid story is growing right along with Bonds’ records instead of fading away. It won’t stop him from passing Aaron, but it will remind everyone how he did it.