The goat

Baseball takes a cue from many ancient cultures and decides to lead a goat out of town to be stoned as atonement for the sins of the many. Alex Sanchez -- all 5'-10" and 180 pounds of him -- is that goat.

You think our testing program is weak? You think we would hide positive results? Here, on the altar of sacrifice to the steroid gods, we give you Alex Sanchez.

What stronger message to send to Tom Davis, Republican of Virginia, chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform; and to Henry Waxman, Democrat of California, the committee's ranking minority member, who last month held a shameful hearing on steroids in baseball; and to John McCain, Republican of Arizona, the Senate's leading critic of baseball's steroid testing?

Given Selig's swift action, this triumvirate of grandstanders, playing melodramatically to steroid zealots, has to take notice and acknowledge, at least privately, that Selig spoke the truth when he assured the committee at the March 17 hearing that baseball's new program would work and that he was willing to suspend players.

It's not like hitting the first home run of the new season or scoring the first run or getting the first strikeout. Those gain momentary recognition and are quickly forgotten. Alex Sanchez will not soon be forgotten. He will be long remembered, either in the sport's serious history or in a trivia question, as No. 1 - the first player nailed under the new steroid testing program.

Maybe Davis and his fellow politicians will hang his picture in their offices on Capitol Hill and each day nod in its direction and say, "We got you, babe."

Well, he did raise his batting average by 35 points last year. Must be the 'roids.