THE STEROID SCANDAL SI Writers • CNNMoney: Players' health should be priority • Donovan: Yankees in middle of storm again • Verducci: This problem won't go away • Taylor: Players should stand up to union • Layden: BALCO case puts stars at risk • Donovan: Baseball's numbers don't add up • Verducci: MLB's drug plan lacks punch • Fish: Steroid sleuth leads charge against THG • SI Special Report: Steroids in baseball • SI Flashback: Caminiti comes clean Latest News • Lawyers reiterate defense of Bonds • Report: Bonds, Giambi, Sheff got steroids • Smoltz calls for tougher drug testing • Kent: Was Babe Ruth on steroids? • BALCO lawyers say Bonds is clean

TAMPA, Fla. -- Nobody handles scandal and controversy like the New York Yankees. They make it. They bake it. They eat the stuff up. From Babe Ruth to Billy Martin and Reggie Jackson. The Bronx Zoo. David Wells' book. The Boss. His pink slips. All that money. The A-Rod trade. The Yankees live daily in 72-point type.

Now, though, the Yankees suddenly find themselves dealing with something altogether different: a scandal only partly of their making. Baseball's preeminent franchise, owner of 26 World Series titles and the most rabid fan base in all of sports, has been pushed to the foreground of the growing controversy surrounding BALCO, the San Francisco laboratory that allegedly supplied steroids to several of the game's biggest stars.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported Tuesday that federal investigators were told that Yankees Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield, among others, received steroids from BALCO.

And the headlines begin to scream again.

The BALCO trial, steroids, drug-testing, who's using, who isn't, who's off the stuff, who still may be on it is all the talk of baseball. It's in every clubhouse, on everybody's mind. But the Yankees, of course, handle it.

"Not too many people have talked about it," shortstop Derek Jeter told reporters, with a straight face, Tuesday. "Obviously, you guys have a lot of questions for Jason and Sheff. But it's been a non-issue, to be honest with you."

What's a non-issue to some is, in reality, possibly the most damaging scandal to hit the game in decades. Maybe ever. If more names start surfacing, baseball faces a crisis in fan confidence that hasn't been seen since the Black Sox.

Already, because of the BALCO case, the spring has been dominated by talk of steroids and how baseball has dealt (or not) with the problem. Because of BALCO, every player who looks a little too muscular or has lost a little too much weight is under suspicion. Because of BALCO, players are starting to take the extraordinary step of questioning one another and, more than that, questioning how their extraordinarily strong union has dealt (or not) with the issue of performance-enhancing drugs in the game.

Jason Giambi and Derek Jeter aren't letting the steroids controversy ruin their fun in the sun. AP

It is a scandal that grows daily. And even if there is a large faction of fans that seems not to care about the damage that these drugs do to the game -- how their use cuts the game's reputation for fair play at the knees and how it skews its history and records -- it's a scandal that seems destined to grow. Which is why Major League Baseball is encouraging front-office people to pipe down on all the talk and why, probably, players like Jeter automatically downplay everything.

"I can't talk about something I don't know anything about," Joe Torre, the Yankees' manager, said. "We feel we really don't want to comment on these things."

Alex Rodriguez: "No. I haven't heard anything. There's so much positive talk going around ... I've heard about zero talk."

Sheffield: "I've had to deal with things like this [before]. I can handle it."

Still, even if some players and managers turn away, there are others who address the issue head-on. On Sunday, Atlanta closer John Smoltz called for a tougher drug-testing program. Many others say the same, though not always so publicly.

Yankees backup first baseman Tony Clark has long been active in the players' union. He hears the rumblings inside the clubhouse. He does not turn away. He knows what has to be done.

"John [Smoltz] is very competent. He has a very good idea of what's going on," Clark said Tuesday in a different corner of the Yankees' clubhouse. "There's an obvious firestorm now."

Players will undergo drug testing again, starting this week, as part of the agreement that was forged in the new collective-bargaining agreement two years ago. Last year, 5 percent to 7 percent of the tests performed turned up positive. This year, for the first time, there will be penalties for positive results.

If the drug-testing policy, with its petty-crime penalties, turns the trick by eliminating these drugs from the game -- and many doubt that the policy can -- the firestorm may begin to die down. If not, players and owners may be forced to work on making the policy tougher. Until then, the BALCO investigation will keep the issue out front.

Meanwhile, the Yankees will simply deal with the issue, sometimes by facing up to it, sometimes by ignoring it. And always by moving on.

Nobody in baseball does it better.

John Donovan is a senior writer for SI.com.