Journalists Lance Williams (left) and Mark Fainaru-Wada face possible jail time for refusing to disclose their sources in their reporting on the BALCO probe. AP

By Phil Taylor

The two most important sports figures of 2006 are almost as anonymous as the sources they are trying to protect. You probably wouldn't recognize Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams if they sat down next to you at this very moment, and if you did, maybe you wouldn't have such nice things to say to them. They did, after all, take away whatever was left of our sporting innocence.

The two San Francisco Chronicle reporters-turned-authors did such a fine job of documenting the prevalence of performance enhancing drugs in sports that it was no longer possible for even the most naïve fan to ignore the issue. They blew the lid off the steroid story that by now, maybe you're wishing would just go away.

You know how the nation never looked at polilticians in quite the same way after All the President's Men? Fainaru-Wada and Williams wrote the book, Game of Shadows, that promises to have the same lasting effect on how we view professional athletes. Their work didn't just shine a light on the apparent steroid use by Barry Bonds and other famous athletes, it made sure that from now on when we watch a great performance, our adulation will always be mixed with a at least a touch of suspicion.

The two writers will never get a ticker-tape parade for that. They'll never have a stadium full of fans chanting their names. But the sports world should be grateful, really, for their work. The first step to recovery from this steroid mess is admitting that there is a problem, and Game of Shadows served as a kind of intervention.

But instead of gratitude, Fainaru-Wada and Williams may get a jail sentence in return, if they don't reveal the names of the anonymous sources who provided them with the illegally leaked grand jury testimony they used in their book. The men and women who corrupted our games get to walk away with little, if any, punishment, while the two reporters who helped expose that corruption have to defend themselves for telling the truth. If some judge makes the authors spend even a moment behind bars, it will be the worst call in sports history.

It may be cold comfort to them if they find themselves in a cell one day, but Fainaru-Wada and Williams did more than anyone to change the face of sports in '06. By exposing some of the cheaters, they struck a blow for honesty, integrity and fair play -- the kind of qualities you look for in sports and, come to think of it, in Sportsmen of the Year.