Rafael Palmeiro. Lance Armstrong. Jose Canseco. Nathan Grimm.

What do these four names have in common? No, they’re not all top-level athletes. And no, they’re not four incredibly good looking men. The one common bond linking these four men is the topic of conversation around professional sports: steroids.

Yes, each name on this list has been linked in some way to steroid usage. That’s right – I was on the juice. I’m proud to report that I’m now clean and all columns will be written using only God-given ability.

Unfortunately for many professional athletes, that claim cannot be made. Discussions about performance enhancing drugs have been all the rage among sports fans and the media, spanning headlines of newspapers and scrolling across bottoms of television sets. Let’s review the events leading up to now.

Alex Sanchez, then on the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, was the first player suspended under Major League Baseball’s new steroid policy -10 games for testing positive.

Sanchez was suspended before the season began, spending the first 10 games of the season on the bench. Sanchez, not normally thought of as a power hitter, wanted to be referred to as a player who has “warning track power” after his fly outs to center.

The steroids issue expands beyond the problems recently encountered by Major League Baseball. Even Armstrong, an American hero and perhaps the best athlete on the planet, was linked to steroid use.

Armstrong perservered through the rumors to win his seventh straight Tour de France. No evidence has been found to raise suspicion of steroid usage since his victory.

But Palmeiro, on the other hand, has given fans much to criticize. After publicly denying steroid usage before the season began, Palmeiro was suspended recently for testing positive during a random screening.

Viewed by many as a cheater and now a liar, Palmeiro’s return to baseball was much awaited by fans – like myself – who fully expected a not-so-warm reception in Baltimore.

What Palmeiro got was a mix of cheers and boos, scoring a minor victory for steroid users everywhere. What will athletes ever learn if fans can’t decipher between right and wrong? I’ll trust Major League Baseball’s testing system. Palmeiro lied. And he got away with it to some degree.

I’d like to claim my brief stint with the juice was completely unintentional, to blame it on my parents for giving me the wrong kind of vitamins or buying a new brand of toothpaste.

But, just like Sanchez and Palmeiro , I now have to face the music. I’ve been suspended by Major League Baseball from watching games for 10 days.

So what’s the next step in cracking down on steroids? More importantly, what happens to current ball players on the juice?

Before the steroid controversy, Palmeiro’s name was involved in serious talks about a spot in the Hall of Fame. Now it’s unsure whether Palmeiro’s name should even be on the ballot.

Soon after Palmeiro’s suspension, Ryan Franklin of the Seattle Mariners also received a suspension for the same offense. Franklin, a pitcher, may be the most surprising case of steroid use to date.

In the end, Sanchez, Palmeiro and Franklin are most likely not the first nor the last to take performance enhancers. And hopefully, for baseball’s sake, not the last to get caught either.

From here, it seems baseball and all sports have two choices in the steroid debate – take a stand or embrace the idea of forever being remembered as the beginning of the Steroid Era.