We care because we must, By: David Schwartz

Let’s say we find out Barry Bonds is on steroids.

Then what?

Do we quit our jobs and walk the earth in search of inner peace? Recall the recent congressional elections? Buy new shoes?

Let’s pretend that Major League Baseball’s internal records – many of which now belong to United States federal prosecutors – reveal that the entire 2003 Cleveland Indians team was injecting each other with so much testosterone they could win the Kentucky Derby.

Then what?

Do we put our children up for adoption? Get plastic surgery? Convert to Buddhism?

Or do we simply move on as if – gasp! – Bonds is irrelevant to our lives. We should, but we won’t. We can’t. As sports fans, we are voyeurs. We like to peek through the window. It’s why people choose to read about filth, and why media sometimes report it.

Earlier this week a federal appeals court ruled that prosecutors can keep records seized from MLB. It’s not the good kind of records. The U.S. government is not the owner of Rickey Henderson’s stolen-base mark.

No, the government has access to the records of baseball’s drug-testing administrator as part of its investigation into pro athletes’ use of illegal steroids. It’s all part of that BALCO thing you’ve been hearing about for a couple of years.

I’ll admit I drank a drip of excitement when I heard Wednesday’s ruling. “This is it” scrolled through my mind like tape through a stock-ticker machine. If the list is made public – and in this investigation, everything is made public – dozens or more of major league and minor league names could be outed as cheaters.

Bonds might be there, but he’s old news at this point – irrelevant except to his blind Bay Area supporters. It’s the names we don’t know about that get us riled up. None of these players have been implicated, but imagine if names such as Albert Pujols, Roger Clemens and David Ortiz surface.

Or, just for laughs, how fun would it be to hear the names of so-so players who gave steroids a whirl, like when Jason Giambi’s little brother, Jeremy, a career .263 hitter, admitted his use to the Kansas City Star.

Following the steroid investigation is at best a guilty pleasure, because for whatever happens on the legal template, it clearly doesn’t matter off of it. It’s a soap opera for the baseball fan too macho to watch “Desperate Housewives.”

And only in baseball and track and field do steroids seem to matter so greatly. Justin Gatlin, Bonds – they are the poster boys for trying to gain an unfair advantage. Earlier this season in the NFL, San Diego’s Shawne Merriman was suspended four games for violating the league’s ban on steroids. He came back, resumed his strong play, and is garnering support for NFL Defensive Player of the Year. NFL fans care very little.

In baseball we stare and point, and we feel momentarily good about ourselves because we know what they’re doing is wrong. We stare and gawk like we do at a rush-hour traffic accident or a fight in the hall of our high school.

We stare because staring is what we do. We could try not caring, but that wouldn’t be much fun.