The steroid story is just starting, count on it. This whole Balco situation, with its previously undetectable cocktail THG, is the break the drug enforcers have been seeking since the East Germans started turning women into men back in the 1970s.

But all the talk of testing and re-testing -- with all the arguments about baseball's weak policy and the ethics of the NFL's allegedly confidential policy -- has obscured a vital point: Dragging the issue toward daylight should embolden the clean guys in sports to speak out. Maybe, with a little luck, they can take back their games.

	Victor Conte, the founder of Balco, finds himself in a mess.

The clean ones have the power, I think, and they're undoubtedly in the overwhelming majority. Think of it this way: If you're a clean-living, 15-to-20-homer guy who believes the illegal drugs taken by other guys at your position are hindering your fame and diminishing your earning power, wouldn't you want the system to change?

Baseball and its players' association are admitting to 5-to-7-percent positive results in their steroid testing, but their history of truthfulness leads most people to believe the number could be higher. Four Oakland Raiders are reportedly on their way to suspensions after testing positive for THG.

(By the way, you don't have to be the head of the ACLU to feel uncomfortable with a system that calls for players to be suspended for testing positive for a substance that wasn't banned at the time of the testing. There's little doubt THG should be banned; but this retroactive reprisal stuff is destined to awaken someone, maybe even the ever-sleepy Gene Upshaw.)

Who knows how much more is out there? If there's an undetectable performance-enhancing drug out there, and it's proven to work, don't you think word has traveled through every single locker room and clubhouse in college and professional sports?

Thought so. And the people with the real power aren't the testers or the chemists or the commissioners. Or the media, even though media pressure could be a vital component. The guys with the power are the clean guys -- the 20-homer-a-year guys and the 285-pound offensive linemen and the shortstop who's struggling to stick around without the extra eight-to-10 homers a trip to Balco might give him.

They're the ones who can campaign for change and make it stick. They're the ones who can fight for whatever shreds of purity still exist in pro sports. And every time another bomb drops, it gets easier for them to speak up for themselves. And, by extension, they'll get to speak for everybody else who gives a damn.

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