When members of Congress turned Major League Baseball's dirty laundry into a partisan tussle with a hearing on Capitol Hill, and then a lawyer for pitcher Roger Clemens' accuser predicted a crooked presidential pardon for Clemens (for whatever), our resolve snapped like a twig.

Congress has no business wasting our tax money holding hearings and bloviating about baseball players.

Don't offer the excuse that baseball's antitrust status makes a congressional inquiry legitimate. The politicians are in this steroid scene because they see a chance to preen before the cameras.

Stop playing baseball and get to work, we say to them.

Whether it's Clemens who is telling the truth or McNamee, it's nothing that demands the attention of Congress any more than Britney Spears' latest plot twist.

Baseball players cheat by using steroids to get the edge to win the games and reap their mega-million contracts. All the while, baseball brass are too busy counting their own cash to care. Then when someone cries foul, the investigations and hearings gear up like a noisy, stench-belching publicity machine. Vote-chasing politicians pretend to care and try to appear morally outraged.

Nobody is being fooled. Baseball, and congressional politics, both are poisoned by money, and the love of the spotlight.

Let baseball take care of itself. If the abuses get bad enough to turn off, and turn away, the fans, then things might change. Nobody is compelled to buy a ticket.

But we Americans who actually have to work for a living are compelled to pay hefty sums in federal tax to support the functioning of our government. That includes the overstuffed paychecks of these congressmen.

Baseball is not a function of government, nor should it be.

The camera-hogs in Congress need to stop wasting our money on pretending that it is their business.

As for any athletes tempted to abuse steroids, we have a two-word warning: Lyle Alzado.