Published: February 10, 2009 10:56 pm      

HARRISON : Time to name names

Just when you thought Major League Baseball was ready to start a season clear of the steroid abuse scandal, it got dragged into the ring for another round.

America’s pastime has seen some its best taken down, but until now that list has been almost exclusively limit to old-timers.

That all changed last weekend when Sports Illustrated broke word that Alex Rodriguez was among those included in the infamous list of 104 players that tested positive for banned drugs during baseball’s anonymous survey in 2003. Two days later, the Yankee slugger wiped away any doubt by admitting he used banned substances during his three-year stint with the Texas Rangers.

A-Rod’s career will be looked at with the same type of skepticism previously reserved for the likes of Barry Bonds and justly so, but why is he the only one? The league’s decision to conduct an anonymous survey in 2003 was ridiculous, but the privacy of those results should have been respected for all players regardless of stature.

“It’s definitely not fair to just pinpoint one guy,” Boston’s Kevin Youkilis told the Associated Press. “I don’t know if somebody had it in for him. I don’t know what because it seems like just to take one name out of that whole group is a little odd to me. If he was named with 10 other players, would that have been fair? I don’t know? If they’d have listed all 104?”

Former union head Marvin Miller agrees and told the AP he’d like an investigation of federal prosecutors to help determine whether there was a government leak of the test results, which remain under court seal.

Since that privacy was breached for Rodriguez, the league should release the names of the other 103 players. Doing so would be another step in helping baseball shed this ugly chapter in its past.

The fate of “the list” is now in the hands of 11 appeals court judges in California. But I would not stop with those 103 names. I also want to know who leaked the list and how they got it.

While we may have reeled in the biggest fish in the baseball pond, why should the other 103 get to swim free?