Latest probe by feds won't hurt baseball

Hold my hand. Let's take a leap together.

Let's assume the absolute worst - a giant, unfair leap, to be clear, but this is why we care about this Anthony Galea story, right?

Let's say that Galea did indeed give HGH to Carlos Beltran, and to Alex Rodriguez, and to Jose Reyes, too.

What would that mean?

Would it damage Major League Baseball? Only if a bunch of fist-shaking and hand-wringing matches your definition of "damage."

Would it hurt New York baseball? See above.

Would it hurt the players themselves? Almost certainly not. And besides, we're a long, long way away from that. After all, we still reside in a land where you're innocent until proven guilty.

You've surely heard the cliche that the definition of insanity is performing the same action repeatedly and expecting a different result. With that in mind, let's try to take a sane approach to this latest development.

First of all, let's list all baseball players who have been disciplined by the government for their involvement with illegal performance-enhancing drugs:

1. Miguel Tejada. For misleading congressional investigators about steroids, a federal judge hit him with a $5,025 fine, a year's probation and 100 days community service.

And . . . that's it. Now let's list all ballplayers whom MLB disciplined as the result of this government activity (as opposed to punishment that stemmed from the collectively bargained drug-testing program):

1. Jason Grimsley. He got caught red-handed, receiving an HGH shipment at his home, by IRS agent Jeff Novitzky. After foolishly speaking to investigators without an attorney, having committed the cardinal sin of giving up teammates' names, he decided to not fight a suspension and instead retired at age 38.

And . . . that's it. Two names, out of more than 100, paid a tangible price.

There's so much we don't know about this latest story. We don't know the nature of the relationship that A-Rod had with Galea. I'm prone to believe Beltran and Reyes because they have been very open with the media about their work with Galea and their meetings with the FBI.

We don't know how long this probe will take. Barry Bonds' BALCO grand-jury testimony took nearly four years to become officially public. Those 2004 leaks to the San Francisco Chronicle made for great conversation, but baseball can't use such information as the basis for anything.

And we don't know if the government has the appetite to actually chase down professional athletes as Novitzky did. Will another such trivial pursuit really play well, whether it's a blue state or a red state?

It's highly, highly unlikely that a player, through his admission of HGH usage to the FBI, could wind up with a 50-game suspension from baseball. There's just no real basis in the collective-bargaining agreement for such an action triggering such a punishment.

More than anything else, remember that this latest investigation won't jeopardize the game in any tangible way. Baseball attendance numbers surged even as All-Star after All-Star became embroiled in the mess; only the bad economy slowed the game's growth.

The integrity of the statistics? Puh-leeze.

Of course we should follow this Galea story. It's interesting, given the names involved. Yet could we possibly learn something from the past?

Let's stop the hysteria, and let this investigation play out a little more before anticipating the worst.