Imrem: MLB sure needed somebody like Lilly King

Ah, Lilly King, where were you when baseball needed you?

The answer is that the Olympic gold medalist wasn't born until 1997.

Maybe baseball's steroids era wouldn't have been so devastating if King, an American swimmer from Indiana, was a major-league shortstop back then.

King won the 100-meter breaststroke at the Rio Olympics last week and said, "It's incredible, just winning a gold medal and knowing I did it clean."

Wham!

King took them all on: All drug users, whether opponents or teammates, even the ones who served suspensions and are back in good standing.

Some cheered King for her audacity. Some called it unsportsmanlike conduct. She couldn't care less either way.

King was engaged in a grudge match with rival Yulia Efimova, who had been caught cheating a couple of times.

After beating Efimova for the gold, King returned a finger wag at the Russian and refused to shake her hand.

Compare that to former Cubs first baseman Mark Grace, who shook Mark McGwire's hand as the Cardinals slugger rounded first base after breaking the single-season home run record.

Much later Grace was quoted as saying that a baseball doper, which McGwire was, doesn't belong in the Hall of Fame.

That's OK. That's Grace's opinion. Maybe he's right. Maybe anyone known to have used performance enhancers should be banned from Cooperstown.

Baseball didn't test for drugs back then, but why didn't Grace and others who supposedly didn't cheat call out the McGwires a couple of decades ago instead of shaking their hands?

Grace and so many others had to know, or at least suspect, that McGwire, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens used PEDs to rewrite baseball's record book.

Hall of Fame managers had to know. World Series-winning general managers had to know. Billionaire club owners had to know. Scouts had to know. Many, if not most, had to know.

The White Sox had to know when they added Jose Canseco and Manny Ramirez to their roster near the end of their steroids-stained careers.

Bud Selig, baseball's commissioner of steroids who prospered as much as anyone from PED-fueled longballs, had to know.

Ryne Sandberg had to know as he watched with Cubs teammates as Sammy Sosa's head grew to beach-ball proportions.

Sandberg bemoaned in his Hall of Fame induction speech that baseball was tainted by PEDs.

That was noble, but why didn't Sandberg or Grace or Selig or all those managers or general managers or club owners or union leaders speak up during the steroids era like Lilly King has been?

Better yet, why didn't they blow whistles and demand the drug issue be addressed?

Because of the man code concerning snitches, probably, none took a stand as loudly as a 159-pound female swimmer with the sweet name Lilly has.

Sitting next to Efimova at a news conference, King said of her gold medal, "I think it is a victory for clean sport."

Imagine if Ken Griffey Jr. said that of his career while sitting next to Bonds.

King took on American sprinter/Olympic medalist Justin Gatlin, who is competing at Rio after serving a drug suspension.

"Do I think someone who has been caught for doping should be on the (U.S.) team," King said. "No, I don't."

Baseball sure could have used someone with Lilly King's nerve back in the 1990s.

mimrem@dailyherald.com