Remember "The Andy Griffith Show" and how funny it was every time Barney's gun would accidentally go off and a bullet would fly errantly in who knows what direction? Andy would always be standing next to Barn, hand held out, waiting patiently for Fearless Fife to hand over his blue steel baby.

This morning, Major League Baseball is Barney, and Jason Grimsley is just the latest misfired bullet darting haphazardly astray in a dangerous and far from funny game of performance enhancement roulette apparently being played with great frequency by our brainless superstars in spandex.

The only thing we're lacking in this formerly hilarious scene is an Andy. Somebody to exhibit a little responsibility, a little authority and backbone, a little mad-as-hell, putting-his-foot-down angst from someone not afraid to ruffle a few lawyers if it means stopping a problem that has invaded a once powerful game being slowly brought to its knees by a sea of juiced up, greenie popping cheaters. Robbers, to boot.

Who do you people think you are anyway? Stealing this great game away from all of us normal, self-respecting fans?

And yes, I know it's more complicated than that. I know it's all about the player's union and their great protective shield and the power they wield, blah blah. That's the big problem. That and the fact that there is not yet a known test for human growth hormone.

Buster Olney, of ESPN, has offered the best solution I've heard so far: No test? No problem. Draw the blood anyway, freeze it and run it when a test is discovered. Pay whatever price you owe down the road.

It's simply a great idea, which is why it will never work. It makes too much sense. But it also puts too many precious paychecks in jeopardy and with the union acting as the great protector, ideas like these can only be talked about, nothing more.

ESPN Radio's Keith Olberman said Wednesday if the player's union won't agree to testing ... the owners must lock the stadium gates until a steroid solution can be found once and for all. It would be the most worthwhile strike/lockout the sport has ever seen.

Grimsley is just the latest lead slug fired from the clown-like gun that is Major League Baseball, and he is still ricocheting off the walls this morning as fans of the American Passed Time again find themselves mourning the death of the sport's better days in what seems like a never-ending wake.

John McCain ... GET MAD will you? Grimsley played for your Diamondbacks. Maybe this will spur you into a vein-popping tirade and you can convince your colleagues on the hill to take some action. Real action.

The simple fact that the Barry Bonds scandal or last year's joke known as the congressional hearings (the one where we all bought into Rafael Palmeiro's load of hooey) has not convinced these fame addicts who strap on their worthless uniforms to quit doping is completely beyond comprehension. Well, no it's not: quite obviously, the new anti-drug rules scare no one.

Grimsley was busted after he received his 12th package of human growth hormone -- IN HIS OWN HOME MAILBOX!! How stupid are these people? Why doesn't Grimsley just have his trainer shoot him up on the mound before he throws the first pitch?

The icing, though, is that Grimsley named names. So this thing can and will drag on and on, and this once great game will spend months mired in muck. Again.

When my wife and I were teaching our children how to begin doing chores around the house, before each of them finally got the hang of, for instance, wiping off the kitchen counter or cleaning off the soap container or helping dry dishes or feeding
and watering the dog, we had to tell each of them everyday: "Here's the reward you get if you do one of your chores ... and ... here's what happens if you don't." They literally had to be led by the hand. And that is fine, because they were children.

Looks like we will have to use the same treatment with our baseball role models, people so apparently void of intelligence that they won't ever get it through their thick heads once and for all that they are ruining not only themselves, but a sport loved by generations and shared by millions.

Someone should stand up and say: One strike, 60 day suspension, two strikes: get out and don't come back ever. There should be no room for cheating in baseball. None. And there should be no room for the stupidity that causes it.