You may have gone on vacation last week, but Congress certainly did not.

Instead, your elected representatives got down to the important business of questioning professional baseball players about their alleged use of steroids. The delightful media event took place last Thursday when six subpoenaed baseball players — Jose Canseco, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Curt Schilling and Frank Thomas — appeared before the House Government Reform Committee. The unlikely meeting was prompted by Canseco’s tell-all New York Times bestseller “Juiced,” in which he hails himself as a steroids expert, professes that steroids are the way of the future, and “names names” of fellow teammates he claims used performance-enhancing drugs.

The media harnessed all of their literary skills to provide the “juicy” details of the hearing: the playful imagery of baseball giants sitting “bicep to bicep,” the clever wordplay on political “grandstanding” and some rather pathetic attempts to parody the classic poem “Casey at the Bat.” It was a strange sight to see: the players appeared ready to burst out of their suit jackets, and if one of them leaned too hard, I was sure the legs of his table would give way. Meanwhile, scrawny politicians lobbed questions from their elevated committee desks; between the two groups a horde of photographers sat like schoolchildren on the floor, cameras poised for a photo-worthy moment.

Unfortunately for the photographers, there were no such moments. Canseco, having been denied immunity, was not in a “tell-all” mood. The rest of the players denied having used steroids, except for McGwire, who repeated “I’m not going to talk about the past” with such monotony that the committee members eventually gave up on asking him questions.

Upsetting — that’s how it all struck me. I felt sick to my stomach, and I wasn’t even sure who had upset me the most.

Perhaps it was the politicians, jumping at the opportunity to chastise, point fingers and score political points McCarthy-style. But they were just as sickened as I was. Most of them were baseball fanatics, too, desiring to save baseball from itself, however misguided their methods were.

Bud Selig is an easy target. Baseball’s commissioner also drew fire from the committee when it was revealed that Major League Baseball’s “tough” new drug policy consisted of a 10-day suspension or a confidential $10,000 fine. Baseball’s management was more than content to see attendance-generating home run contests while turning a blind eye to rampant steroid use.

As a monogamous Kansas City Royals fan since birth, I’ve never had any sympathy for Canseco. When Canseco authored a book in a not-so-subtle attempt to profit from his misdeeds and tarnish the reputations of his former teammates, I considered it nothing more than evidence of his insuppressible megalomania. I extended to him no benefit of the doubt.

That is, until Mark McGwire refused to “say it ain’t so.” His non-denial only confirmed what I’ve always suspected deep-down, but never given credence to: that our sports heroes are not the finest of human specimens, but chemically mutated cheaters.

Tragic that it took an unabashed narcissist and political opportunists to expose the fraud. Baseball used to be a sport that jealously guarded its own integrity. After all, this is the sport that gave Pete Rose a lifetime suspension for betting on baseball, the sport that revoked George Brett’s home run in the infamous “pine-tar incident,” and the sport whose “designated hitter” rule — in use in the American League since 1973 — still engenders heated discussions as to whether its use corrupts the game’s integrity.

Steroid use presents a seminal challenge to baseball’s credibility. No one benefits from a weak enforcement system — not the clean players whose records are eyed with suspicion, not the users who risk permanent damage to their bodies, not the wannabes who pump up on horse steroids made in Mexico.

We desperately want to believe that our larger-than-life sports stars are naturally that big, but we won’t be played for fools again. Baseball, it’s time to clean up your act.