The steroids in baseball story is not going away anytime soon, and the people that keep saying, “nothing will ever come of [insert the latest development]” haven’t been keeping up with the story.

Some sports journalists who should know better by now are still naysaying in the face of a series of developments that have spoken to the contrary. As a matter of fact, every development has propelled the issue forward since the Balco Labs story. The congressional hearings, the Jason Grimsley situation, the Kirk Radomski story, and most recently Giambi’s non-apology apology have all advanced the story of the use of performance enhancing drugs in major league baseball.

Now it’s quite possible that baseball will bollocks this thing up and not handle Giambi in the right manner. But now that the Yankee under-achiever has decided to cooperate with the George Mitchell/Bud Selig investigation, he can offer a lot of valuable information that can help baseball understand how PEDs infiltrated their sport, and how to prevent similar occurrences in the future.

The question is, does MLB know the right questions to ask Giambi?

Aside from the sizzle that might come from naming names, nothing good can come from Giambi providing the league with the names of any fellow users. If word got out that baseball was just looking to get the names of steroid/human growth hormone users, the league’s effort would be severely discredited. This investigation shouldn’t be about tarnishing the reputations of ballplayers or ex-ballplayers, but should be about developing information that can help the league clean house while making sure that baseball doesn’t expose itself to another similar scandal.

And besides, Kurt Radomski has already given the authorities plenty of names since at the time of his arrest a couple of years ago he was identified as the major supplier of PEDs to ballplayers in the post-Balco years. Radomski has been cooperating with the investigation since he was busted, so it’s doubtful that Giambi can add any names to the list that baseball undoubtedly has.

There’s no doubt about it; performance-enhancing drugs are here to stay. Sports have always manipulated technology and athletes have always been willing to use immature scientific advances before they were ready to be used – or should be used - by the masses. Powerful alternatives to steroids and human growth hormone have been available for the past few years and are being used by people in all walks of life right now. The best step that the league can take to protect the players is to understand how these drugs can get into the hands of ballplayers and to take the proper preventative measures.