A question that lingers after Wednesday's mostly frustrating congressional committee steroid hearing is what is the public appetite - or even tolerance level - for a continued exploration of who is telling the truth in the Roger Clemens case.
Not that I'm suggesting there's anything that can be done to make it go away or even that it should go away. In the end, there are federal law-enforcement types out there who will determine whether there is more to be examined here - the operative word being perjury. But I do wonder whether the public has much interest in a prolonged examination of baseball's steroid era, especially if Major League Baseball doesn't plan to address what came out of it - namely, the statistics and the records.
The best thing that can come out of this is that the use of performance-enhancing drugs stops or is substantially slowed. And more importantly, that young aspiring athletes see performance-enhancers not as some clever path to gain a competitive edge but as disgraceful cheating that can seriously harm their health.
But getting back to what to do about past sins and the sinners. Already, Barry Bonds in battling a perjury indictment, a case that will, in the court of public opinion, stand as some sort of a proxy for his reported use of performance-enhancing drugs. So that will grind on to some sort of conclusion.
Whether Clemens faces a similar fate remains to be seen. There might be pressure to pursue a Clemens investigation and prosecution to show Bonds isn't a case of selective prosecution.
Former Oriole Miguel Tejada is also twisting in the wind on that perjury score.
And ex-Orioles star Rafael Palmeiro managed to dodge that high hard inside one.
But think about Mark McGwire and his 2005 testimony in front of Congress. Not even his fans can say the guy covered himself with glory for stonewalling and refusing to address the steroid past. But other than Hall of Fame voters turning their back on him, he has been allowed the refuge of retirement on the golf course - and his records are still intact.
So how much merit is there in continuing the hunt regarding others?
There are some who would argue the pursuit of truth is always righteous and exposing wrong is its own virtue, even when little concrete result comes of it.
And in more specific terms, some would also argue that when someone puts himself in the crosshairs of such inspection - and that could be Clemens - he deserves whatever comes of that scrutiny.
bill.ordine@baltsun.com