Not long after federal agents knocked on Jason Grimsley's door, I got a call from a supplement designer who's hawking his product. He claims it will be bigger than Andro, but they all say that. What got my attention was when he told me that three MLB strength coaches had called him to ask about his assertion that it won't trip a drug test. "I'm not advertising that," the designer, William Llewellyn, says about his X-Factor, which contains a fatty acid found in red meat. "But it's turned into a big selling point."

I've known Llewellyn since I helped put him on the cover of this magazine for a 2003 story about chemists who try to stay one step ahead of drug testers in sports. There has been a lot of water under the Bay Bridge since then: the cream and the clear, the congressional hearings that forced tougher penalties for baseball's steroid users, Barry passing The Babe.

But Llewellyn got me wondering about the sport's 33-page Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment policy. Sure, it was partly created to stop Congress from intervening in baseball's affairs. But this policy, a compromise between MLB and the players association, was also supposed to give us fans peace of mind. When a player like Albert Pujols -- who was flirting with a record home run pace before his oblique injury in early June -- insists he's clean, we desperately want to believe him.

So I decided to find out exactly what "clean" means. This is what I learned: Baseball's policy is less a rule book than a road map that shows any player in search of a chemical edge exactly how far he can go. As of mid-June, a Mets pitcher named Yusaku Iriki, fresh off the plane from Japan, was the only player on any team's 40-man roster to test positive this season. If you think that means MLB has corrected its performance-enhancement problems, think again.

If I were a player and I wanted to beat the system, here are four ways I could do it.

1. The 5% Solution

Yes, players are tested for steroids in the off-season. But not many. According to the policy, baseball can conduct a maximum of 60 random out-of-competition tests. Considering that the total pool of eligible players is 1,200, that means 5%, at most, will get a knock at the door.

If I were a big leaguer, I'd like those odds enough to start hitting the juice as soon as I cleaned out my locker in October. I'd put myself on a muscle builder like testosterone cypionate, which I'd get from a friendly doctor or personal trainer, then hit the gym hard. I'd cycle on for eight weeks and then go off the stuff for four. By the time I'm ready to report to spring training, in mid-February, my urine should be within acceptable limits. Just to make sure there are no surprises, I'd get tested by a private lab beforehand.

MLB is very courteous about letting me know what to expect when I arrive at camp. Thanks to the drug policy, I'm guaranteed that my first test will occur within five days of reporting. Even better, I've been told that the test will take place "in conjunction with the clubs' spring training physicals." All I have to do is look on the bulletin board for the date and hour. Armed with all this information, I'd have to be an idiot to get nailed at this point.

Even though I'm off the juice, I should be able to maintain my muscular edge through the All-Star break, if not beyond. Would my coaches or trainers ask questions? Not likely. In 2006, every team has staffers who've been through the Steroids Era. They are well aware that Giants trainer Stan Conte was summoned to testify before the federal grand jury that's considering perjury charges against Bonds. Support staffers understand the danger of knowing too much.

"That's huge," says Larry Starr, a former athletic trainer for the Reds and the Marlins who's spoken with the Mitchell commission, which is investigating steroids in baseball. "If trainers don't talk to the player, who will?"

2. The "E" Fix

The testers aren't searching for just testosterone. They're also looking for its chemical cousin, epitestosterone. The body makes both in equal amounts, so a red flag gets raised when the proportion is out of whack. Figuring out the correct testosterone-to-epitestosterone ratio is like trying to set the speed limit on an interstate. Even though most people have a ratio of 1:1, the World Anti-Doping Agency originally used a 6:1 limit, reasoning that it had to allow for the rare athlete whose testosterone level is naturally high. Last year, WADA cut back to 4:1. Baseball, along with the NFL, followed suit.

If I'm like most people, the new limit still gives me license to more than triple my testosterone level. "I've seen a study that showed that a 3:1 ratio conveyed a significant performance enhancement," says Penn State steroids expert Charles Yesalis.

The ratios are easy to manipulate. BALCO founder Victor Conte's infamous cream was a wicked-strong blend of T and E that was rubbed on the skin. The two ingredients were mixed in perfect proportion, ensuring that anyone who used the cream would ace every drug test.

Word has it that some Olympic athletes keep a stash of powdered epitest in their pockets. Why? If a drug tester surprises them, an athlete can covertly flick some on his or her tongue and instantly lower the ratio. "It completely skews the sample," says a source.

Can I prove that this is being done in baseball? No. But if a guy like me can find out about it, I have to believe there are some personal trainers connected to future Hall of Famers who know about it, too.

3. The Loopholes

Once I've made it to Opening Day, I can pretty much count on being tested twice more for steroids and 30 different varieties of stimulants. So how will I stay wired? Where there's a will, there's a way. The Washington Post recently reported that Patrick Arnold, the Illinois chemist who pleaded guilty to supplying BALCO with the designer steroid THG, is marketing a supplement whose active ingredient is an amphetaminelike substance that was patented in 1944. It's so obscure, current drug tests don't look for it.

What's strange is that the policy is stricter on some mild stimulants than on a hard-core endurance booster like EPO, which increases the blood's capacity to deliver oxygen by as much as 8%. EPO is a favorite in hypertested sports like cycling because, depending on the dosage, it can clear the body in 72 hours or less, which means the testers have to be very lucky to catch you.

Baseball instituted a trial detection program for EPO last year, but the results haven't been released. In any event, the policy is vague on the subject, leaving it up to MLB and the union to "determine the appropriate treatment" of EPO.

"Appropriate treatment?" says Gary Wadler, a medical adviser to the World Anti-Doping Agency. "This is an incredibly dangerous drug. If it's misused, it can cause heart attacks. That's why WADA bans it. There's nothing appropriate about using it for nonmedical reasons. What does baseball have to think about?"

If I'm a wannabe cheater, I don't care. All I know is that it's good news for me.

4. The Growth Industry

At least there's a urine test to detect EPO. That's not the case for human growth hormone, which may have replaced the double play as the pitcher's best friend. The feds tracked a season's supply of it to Grimsley's home in Arizona.

Baseball bans HGH, for what it's worth, but the scientific community lacks consensus on a reliable test. The blood test used at the Athens Olympics failed to turn up a single positive, leading skeptics to question its effectiveness. (There is no urine test for HGH, and the players association, like all other major pro sports unions, has refused to permit blood tests, regardless of their merit.)

But frankly, it's hard to understand why a player wouldn't consider using HGH. Users say growth hormone can improve vision, energy and reflexes. Think about that the next time you read a story about your favorite slugger's uncanny pitch selection.

I used to believe HGH was hard to get, but that was before I started looking into the burgeoning business of anti-aging clinics. David Segui was way ahead of me: As Grimsley told the feds (and Segui corroborated in his June 18 interview with ESPN's Outside the Lines), Segui got a prescription for HGH in 2003 from one such clinic and later advised Grimsley to do the same. Another anti-aging firm contacted me not long ago, offering to send someone to my home to take my blood, check my levels and then prescribe a cocktail that included HGH. What do you think they'd do for a fading star who's hoping for one more shot at October glory?

None of this is lost on Rob Manfred, MLB's executive VP for labor relations. "The notion that it is possible to get a prescription for a banned substance is troubling to us, given the limits of the testing," he says. Manfred points out that baseball is ready to spend $450,000 for medical research on a urine test for HGH. But the research hasn't started, and no one is making any promises about how fruitful it will be.

Even if a test miraculously becomes available, hard-core juicers could simply move on to insulin, which acts as an energy and muscle booster when used in conjunction with steroids or HGH. Though insulin is banned by WADA for nonmedicinal purposes, it's not on baseball's list of prohibited substances.

What keeps Penn State's Yesalis up at night is the knowledge that too much insulin can cause a perfectly healthy person to slip into a diabetic coma by triggering a profound drop in blood sugar. "When HGH first hit the gyms, bodybuilders were experimenting with it in low doses," Yesalis says. "Now they're up to 20 to 30 times that. What if the same thing happens with insulin? This stuff can kill you."

Let's hope my personal trainer, my doctor and my support staff are good enough to keep me out of trouble.

The Conclusion

It seems clear that MLB and the players association have a lot more work to do. They need to put EPO and insulin on the banned list and beef up an off-season testing program that ignores 95 percent of the players. They also need to deal with the perception that they're not doing everything necessary to combat the problem.

But what should we expect from baseball, or any other sport, for that matter? No policy is perfect, and MLB maintains that its testing is working. "If you're a professional baseball player, you are going to have to provide us with a sample of urine even though we have no reason to believe you've done wrong," Manfred says. "And if you're positive, we'll tell the world and suspend you from your livelihood. Fifty games [for a first offense] is a huge deterrent."

That's true. But if I were a player and I wanted to cheat, it wouldn't stop me. And if I did it right, I might be able to look you in the eye and tell you I'm clean. Because in sports, clean isn't about who's using and who isn't.

It's about what the policy will allow.