Steroids have already undermined the integrity of baseball. Some of the game’s biggest stars, including New York Yankee Jason Giambi and San Francisco slugger Barry Bonds, have been implicated in using performance-enhancing drugs.

Bonds, of course, is often touted as the best to ever play the game, has set the single-season home run record and has been named the National League’s Most Valuable Player seven times, including the last four years. And he’s 40 years old, past the traditional peak years for baseball players.

Major League Baseball has taken a soft stance on steroid abuse. Despite allegations and evidence of use, the League and the Players’ Association have thwarted attempts to impose mandatory, random testing. That has to change.

Baseball great Roger Maris carried a footnote in the record books after he broke Babe Ruth’s mark for most home runs in a season. He hit 61 homeruns in 1961, breaking Ruth’s record, which was set in 1927. His accomplishment was marred, however, because the season was eight games longer than when Ruth set the record. In truth, the asterisk was only a means to protect Ruth’s legacy.

The records and statistics of Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi and any other players found to have used performance-enhancing drugs should also each carry an asterisk.

Sen. John McCain is threatening to pass legislation to force Major League Baseball to aggressively police for steroid use. While we certainly understand his desire to clean up the game, legislating the rules of a sport – even the national pastime – goes beyond good government. Hopefully, the mere threat will put enough pressure on baseball to mandate random, year-round testing.

It’s easy to understand the lure of performance-enhancing drugs. How many of us would resist a pill that would make us smarter or better at our jobs, help us earn monstrous amounts of money and be adored by legions of fans? Especially if the rules were merely a wink and nod about using the drugs?

We take drugs for many lifestyle issues, not just to treat disease. But there have to be boundaries. Baseball has failed to set its own. The league has a chance when it meets this week to do the right thing. If not, MLB leaves its fate in the hands of an aggressive politician who is unlikely to take no for an answer.