I didn’t watch the major league baseball steroid testimony yesterday (March Madness is about hoops, baby, even though my bracket is well on its way to being in tatters). But I saw highlights and read a recap by ESPN’s Jayson Stark.

Clearly Mark McGwire took the hardest hit, because every other player there (except Jose Canseco) unequivocably said, “I’m clean. I’ve never done steroids. Not me. Never.” Whether they’re telling the truth or not we may never know. But when McGwire was asked, when he was given the opportunity to clear it up once and for all and say, “I’m clean” he pleaded the fifth, said he wasn’t there to talk about the past. So automatically everyone knows he’s hiding something, he’s guilty, he’s still trying to keep those skeletons hidden in his closet.

And so what if he is? Take a step back and remember why he was there in the first place: Jose Canseco.

Canseco needed to make a quick buck and wrote a sensationalist book about steroids in baseball, naming names like McGwire as his compatriot in steroid joy. Except Canseco had no credibility to begin with and has been discredited further, first in press interviews about his book and now in his testimony before Congress:

Jose Canseco did a 180 on stuff he said in his own book, then used the alibi that it was because he wrote it two years ago. Whereupon Rep. Stephen Lynch sneered: “I’ll wait for the sequel.”

Yet there was McGwire, compelled to appear before a Congressional panel (and on live international TV), having been subpoenad and threatened wtih being held in contempt of Congress if he didn’t show. Was there just cause to force his appearance? Was he outed by two credible sources as being their steroid hookup, and was he the prime figure in the recent BALCO steroid scandal? No, that was Barry Bonds who inexplicably got a free pass and didn’t have to show. McGwire retired from baseball four years ago and has since lived by all accounts an inconspicuous life out of the spotlight with his wife and kids. He hasn’t come back as a coach or manager, as a television or radio personality, hasn’t milked his celebrity for exorbitant autograph fees at baseball card shows. He’s just been retired and out of the spotlight. Then he was dragged in front of an international audience and is presumed guilty unless he can prove his innocence.

It’s not McCarthyism, but it’s a step in that direction.