IT'S TIME TO PLAY HARDBALL.

Byline: STEVE DILBECK

The truth. That's all it's about. It's just so simple, so fundamental.

It's not McCarthyism. Not the new witch hunts. Not even about showboating, going after Barry Bonds, breaking that beloved code or taking the moral high ground.

It doesn't matter if you believe Congress has more significant issues to address, or that alcohol and street drugs are bigger concerns to our youth, or if Jose Canseco is a self-serving slime ball.

What matters is getting to the truth. To find out exactly what happened, how deep the problem runs and to make sure it can't happen again.

Do not get tired of the steroids issue in baseball. Do not let it beat you down until you just want it to simply go away or view it as some annoyance that distracts from the game. It is important. It needs to be addressed. And if it takes a bunch of grandstanders on the Hill to get to the bottom of it, so what?

It is wrong to cheat. Kinda fundamental, right?

It is wrong to lie.

It is wrong and dangerous to take illegal drugs.

Aren't those the things we try to teach our children?

And now, what, we're just supposed to look the other way? Use the juvenile logic of, hey, they all cheat, what's the big deal?

What is everyone so afraid of that they get lost in a sea of rationalization? You really think baseball, handled with kid gloves for years because of its antitrust exemption, can police itself? What a laugh.

Steroids ran rampant for years, and all baseball did was put its head in the sand. Not only was there no investigation in the '90s, baseball officials wore blinders the size of the Washington Monument.

Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa brought baseball back to life. After the lockout and declining TV ratings, their home-run derby in 1998 was credited for saving the game. Returned it to our living rooms. A real live renaissance.

But what if they were both juiced? Pumped-up fakes, cheating for an edge? It does not matter if steroids were remarkably not banned by baseball - they are illegal without a prescription. They were breaking the law.

Baseball didn't want to know a thing about it. It had a warm-and-fuzzy thing going. McGwire with his kid. Sosa with his fingered heart-kiss thing.

The new, still-too-lax, steroids testing plan only came about because of outrage by the public, media and, yes, the government.

Baseball has been hiding under the sheets on steroid for years. It has forfeited all legitimate rights to the subject. It's all ``Hey, not me, I didn't know. It's the union's fault. It's a few isolated guys.''

Now the House of Government Reform Committee has subpoenaed Jason Giambi, Frank Thomas, Curt Schilling, Rafael Palmeiro, Sosa, McGwire and Canseco for a hearing Thursday on steroids in baseball. You'd think these guys would be running to D.C. to clear their names. Jump at the chance to clear their names. McGwire, Sosa and Palmeiro have all denied taking steroids.

Now, on a huge national stage, they have an opportunity to try to prove their innocence and everyone but Schilling are scurrying to hire lawyers? Baseball is bargaining with Congress to only let its officials appear?

You gotta love the nerve of these guys. We'll send a couple of officials and Donald Fehr, and you'll be happy. Almost like they knew there was something to hide. Congress, happily, responded that you will send exactly who we asked you to send and when.

There will still be no evidence, so any guilty player can always lie. If somehow it's discovered, however, then they're talking real-life time in pinstripes.

Any player showing up Thursday and taking the Fifth knows it's tantamount to pleading guilty.

What this show is lacking, of course, is the real star, Bonds.

Government officials must have gotten one look at his act during his spring-training press conference and decided to take a pass. Barry vs. Congress, that could have boosted the C-SPAN ratings.

You would think Bonds would be the centerpiece of all this, what with him having gone from 49 homers in 2000 to 73 in 2001, and from a size-16 neck to ``Does that come in a tank top?''

Bonds all but admitted he took steroids last week in that bizarre dugout interview, where he reasoned: ``We're entertainers. Leave us alone and let us do what we need to do.''

Now isn't that just marvelous logic? Just close your eyes and let us cheat, gain a mysterious 30 pounds of muscle in the offseason, endanger our lives, and set a perfectly atrocious example for all those who look up to us?

This is the same Bonds who almost pleaded: ``Why can't we forget about the past and move on?''

This whole ``Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it'' line of thinking just kind of went by him.

Bonds is tied up in the federal BALCO investigation, where he reportedly said under oath something like, ``Well, maybe I was cheating, but I didn't know I was cheating.''

But since he is in that investigation, some have reasoned he was subpoenaed by Congress, though that didn't prevent Giambi from getting an invite.

Here's hoping Congress asks the tough questions. Plays hard ball with baseball. Acts like King of the Hill.

And gets to the one simple thing we all need - the truth.