Consider baseball’s steroids problem solved.

Okay, baseball has a steroids problem.

Or… it did.

Or… it still does.

Or… honestly, I don’t care.

And I love baseball.

Anyway, the way people are reacting to all of this stuff, especially after A-Rod’s latest comments, I think we really have only two options from here on out:

1.) Execute any baseball player who admits to have taken steroids or peformance-enhancing drugs, or is caught having taken them.

And I mean any baseball player: Major League, minor league, Japanese League, college, high school, little league, sandlot pickup ball, tee-ball, etc.

Let’s do it in front of an audience while we’re at it. Sell tickets, the whole nine yards. Heck, why don’t we even preserve the old Yankee Stadium — for symbolic, historic purposes, of course — to serve as baseball’s designated death chamber?

It’ll be an event you can bring the kids to! Put it on TV, fill the press boxes with reporters, sell peanuts, and everything! But maybe Mike Lupica, Jay Mariotti, and Skip Bayless shouldn’t be allowed in the press box during the event — they should be special guests of honor with seats on the field as the execution takes place!

Then, after much pomp and circumstance, including the singing of the National Anthem, a speech from Bud Selig decrying performance enhancers, and an extended video montage of Hank Aaron highlights, the guilty steroid user is ushered to the pitcher’s mound, where a firing squad executes him, much to the delight of the exuberant audience and a press box granted special permission to cheer.

And then, after the body of the steroid transgressor falls dead on the mound, a steady stream of well-respected and highly-revered baseball Hall Of Famers, headlined by Cal Ripken, Jr., of course, are ushered to the mound to ceremonially spit on the carcass and/or kick it if they so chose.

Who’d juice then?

2.) All baseball players everywhere should be required to use steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs.

This would be done under doctors’ supervision, of course. And additionally, players would be encouraged to develop their own side program of steroid injections, PED cocktails, and anything else they can get their hands on.

Look, if you’re gonna juice, you may as well go all out.

To keep things fair, everyone must take them. If players forget to take them? Suspensions and fines. If players flat-out refuse to take them? Well, they don’t have to play pro ball. It’s their choice.

Just let everyone juice up as much as they can, work out as often as the juice would allow, and see how entertaining the game becomes. And you know with no regulation — and encouragement, even — the PEDs would become even more potent than they are now.

Imagine, if you will, pitchers clocking 110 mph on the radar gun, batters regularly clearing 600-feet on their home runs, and base stealers swiping bags at speeds today’s mere mortals couldn’t fathom.

It would be a spectacle unlike anything anyone’s ever seen before.

If everyone’s on steroids, and known to be on steroids, there is no steroids problem.

Rickey probably thinks Rickey’s HOF induction speech will be the best ever. And it will.

After however many years it’s been since becoming eligible, Jim Rice is finally heading to Cooperstown.

Blah, blah, blah.

Now we can stop hearing the whining from Peter Gammons and all the other East Coasters about how Rice should be in the Hall Of Fame, which during any other year would be the best thing about a Rice-related HOF induction.

But what really gets me excited is that, thanks to Rickey Henderson’s induction, this year will probably include the most entertaining Hall Of Fame induction speech ever.

It’ll surely be the first induction ceremony I make it through watching.

That’s because, well — y’know how people make fun of athletes talking in third person?

That’s based on Rickey Henderson.

Well, if it’s not, it should be. Furthermore, if it’s not, he sure took it to the next level. And then some.

Skip Yogi Berra — Rickey Henderson had the best quotes in baseball history.

Click here for some random dude’s list of the top 25 Rickey Henderson moments/quotes/urban legends. Here are a few — okay, a bunch — of my favorites from it as well:

• In the early 1980s, the Oakland A’s accounting department was freaking out. The books were off $1 million. After an investigation, it was determined Rickey was the reason why. The GM asked him about a $1 million bonus he had received and Rickey said instead of cashing it, he framed it and hung it on a wall at his house.
• This one happened in Seattle. Rickey struck out and as the next batter was walking past him, he heard Henderson say, “Don’t worry, Rickey, you’re still the best.”
• Moments after breaking Lou Brock’s stolen base record, Henderson told the crowd – with Brock mere feet next to him – “Lou Brock was a great base stealer, but today, I am the greatest of all-time.”
• A reporter asked Henderson if Ken Caminiti’s estimate that 50 percent of Major League players were taking steroids was accurate. His response was, “Well, Rickey’s not one of them, so that’s 49 percent right there.”
• Henderson broke Ty Cobb’s career record for runs scored with a home run. After taking his usual 45 seconds or so around the bases, Rickey slid into home plate.
• Rickey was asked if he had the Garth Brooks album with Friends in Low Places and Henderson said, “Rickey doesn’t have albums. Rickey has CDs.”
• In June 1999, when Henderson was playing with the Mets, he saw reporters running around the clubhouse before a game. He asked a teammate what was going on and he was told that Tom Robson, the team’s hitting coach, had just been fired. Henderson said, “Who’s he?”
• Before every game he played, Henderson stood completely naked in front of a full length locker room mirror and said, “Ricky’s the best,” for several minutes.

One thing I also enjoyed about Rickey Henderson, aside from his skills, was that he was that he threw with his left hand and hit from the right side of the plate. There are a lot of guys who throw righty but bat lefty, but Henderson was unique, even in that regard.

Speaking of his uniqueness, here’s another good anecdote about Henderson from ESPN’s Jayson Stark on the 1993 World Series:

It was the off day before the start of the ‘93 World Series. I thought a great angle would be a comparison of the two leadoff hitters. Lenny Dykstra had had a fabulous season and had scored 143 runs, the most by any leadoff man since, who else, Henderson.

So I approached Henderson on the field and started to explain the story. He said, “Who’s Lenny Dykstra?”

I laughed. Then I said, “He’s the other leadoff hitter.”

Henderson said, “There ain’t no other leadoff hitter but me.”

I tried to keep going with my angle. He didn’t see it.

“What’s Lenny Dykstra ever done?” he asked.

I started to give the stats. Henderson cut me off.

“Man, why you trying to compare some other guy with Rickey? There’s only one Rickey.”

And that was that. There was, in fact, only one Rickey. And that will never change. Ever.

Man, I can’t wait.

When’s the induction ceremony?

The Giants apparently don’t want to suck

While they had Barry Bonds, the San Francisco Giants surrounded him with crusty veterans on the down sides of their careers.

Since letting him walk after he broke the all-time home run record, they’ve tried to infuse sucky young players — not including Cy Young Award winning young buck Tim Lincecum, that is — with the remaining crusties.

They did sign CF Aaron Rowand last year, though, to make it look like they weren’t totally giving up.

But now, one day after signing reliever Bob Howry, the San Francisco Giants have signed SS Edgar Renteria, giving them another above average veteran to go along with Rowand and another above average player, catcher Bengie Molina.

With that group of above average vets to go with Lincecum, it looks like the Giants are actually trying to do something. Or, at the least, not completely suck.

Now all they need is a position player superstar to build around.

College player of the year Buster Posey can’t be fast-tracked fast enough.