We’re somewhere between one-third and one-half of the way through the 2009 Major League Baseball season. When I checked my local newspaper this morning, Joe Mauer was batting .420-something, Zach Greinke’s ERA was below 2.00 and five of the league’s six division races were within three games.

But the main news on the baseball page was about the New York Times’ story indicating that Sammy Sosa tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug in 2003.

So, now each of the three players to break Roger Maris’ record of 61 homers in 1961 – Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sosa – have been implicated in the steroid era. Those allegedly fantastic days when McGwire and Sosa chased each other to the record have been flushed down the toilet along with vials and used steroid syringes.

Once again, this comes down to Major League Baseball itself, the MLB Players Association and the players involved in letting these stars get away with these infractions against the game. Bud Selig said on the Dan Patrick Show Tuesday that he didn’t think it was fair that Raul Ibanez’ accomplishments of the early 2009 season get questioned because of the acts of players past.

Ibanez said the same a few weeks ago, angrily dismissing the accusations of a blogger that his tremendous start had anything to do with performance enhancers. I believe Ibanez, though I think someone should take him up on his offer to provide drug testers with hair, blood, urine, stool and whatever else they want to test.

But Ibanez needs to understand that he and every other player who didn’t stand up and demand drug testing when rumors of infractions were popping up earlier this decade played a role in what went on, whether they used or not.

Chicago Sun Times columnist Rick Telander visited Patrick’s show today and recounted several conversations he had with players during that time who said things like “they can do whatever they want, I just focus on my game.”

“Too bad, get out of the game,” Telander barked about Ibanez’ complaints.

While his stance toward Ibanez is perhaps a bit more harsh than I would take, his sentiment is so right. The commissioner, the union head and, yes, the players, all have to take the blame for this ongoing scandal and that includes today’s guys, clean or not, who will be answering questions until this situation goes away.

Donald Fehr shouldn’t have fought against drug testing. Bud Selig should have demanded drug testing. And the clean players should have stood up and shouted to the heavens as Ibanez is now: “I am clean – take my stool, my blood, my hair, and my urine.”

Now, in repeated dribs and drabs and drips and blips, this story is going to keep playing itself out week after week and month after month. More than 100 players tested positive in 2003 when the league and the union started looking into a drug testing program.

So far Sosa and Alex Rodriguez’ names have come out. That leaves an awful lot left. They’re going to leak, either all at once or over this painfully slow, long process, one at a time.

Brushbackpitch.com has long expressed that the first step toward restoring any kind of legitimacy to the game starts with replacing Selig and Fehr from their positions of leadership. Both have lost the public’s trust and should have been removed from their jobs long ago.

However, Major League Baseball is also going to have to find a way to get ahead of the positive tests that keep leaking out. Yes, they were confidential – so there are definitely legal issues involved. But if they keep leaking out the way they are, the steroid scandal is going to stretch on and on and on. Then there will be almost no way the game can get past these transgressions no matter how hard they try.