Baseball has always had a revered place in our culture for providing a brief escape from the more complicated parts of life.

Political strife, economic depression and war fade into the background against the joys of an afternoon game.

And sometimes the internal issues, such as labor conflicts and exuberant salaries, can be ignored.

But the problem of steroid use is an entirely different category.

Whereas the crack of a bat hitting one out of the stadium can drown out a multitude of worries, we are now left to wonder about those muscles that swung the bat, and, ultimately, what drugs may have been involved in the whole affair.

And that’s a sad state for America’s most beloved sport.

Now with some of the biggest star players — including Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi — accused of drug use, the integrity of the sport is threatened. Commissioner Bud Selig has tried to stop the bleeding by issuing a gag order, but it’s a laughable attempt to make a problem disappear by being quiet and hoping no one notices.

This kind of willful ignorance seems to be baseball’s modus operandi when it comes to steroids.

The league finally came up with a steroid testing plan two years ago, but the plan had no teeth. Only if more than 5 percent of the players tested positive would the league bring in a stricter plan.

Beating the tests was so easy that the system could only catch the players who were complete idiots or were too cocky to care about what the consequences might be.

Well, a year later, the 5 percent threshold was exceeded and the league was forced to institute some real punishments, including fines and suspensions.

Still, the risk of getting caught doesn’t match the potential benefits that performance-enhancing drugs can deliver to players.

With the recent controversy, baseball needs to take a real stand to protect its integrity and to keep the record books from being filled with asterisks — never mind the young audiences that idolize the players.

In fact, this whole debacle could have been avoided if baseball had confronted steroids the same time football did back in the 1980s.

The players’ union so far has been defiant when it comes to demands for stricter testing, not wanting to sacrifice the players’ privacy to urine tests.

But violating the sanctity of their urine is a small price to pay in order to make sure an afternoon at the baseball park stays at least more sacred than a Saturday night at a pro wrestling arena.