The man who could blow baseball apart

Concern for the integrity of the game is already mounting after Caminiti revealed to Sports Illustrated magazine that he was using steroids imported from Mexico when he won the National League's Most Valuable Player award in 1996.

He told Sports Illustrated that he overdosed on steroids so heavily that his testicles shrank and retracted, and his body virtually stopped producing its own testosterone. After he stopped taking the drugs, Caminiti said: "It took four months to get my nuts to drop on their own."

There are other serious side effects associated with steroid abuse, including heart and liver damage, an increased chance of suffering a stroke, aggressive behaviour and the dysfunction of genitalia.

However, the best baseball players can command contracts that eclipse David Beckham's new weekly wage of £80,000 from Manchester United.

Since muscle bulk helps batters score the dramatic home runs that bring fans teeming through the turnstiles, it is easy to understand why some of them should succumb to the temptation of using steroids, and why some team owners seem prepared to tolerate this cheating.

"It's no secret what's going on in baseball," said Caminiti. "At least half the guys are using steroids. They talk about it. They joke about it with each other."

Disturbingly, he added: "If a young player were to ask me what to do, I'm not going to tell him it's bad. Look at all the money in the game. You have a chance to set your family up, to get your daughter into a better school.

"So I can't say 'don't do it', not when the guy next to you is as big as a house and he's going to take your job and make the money."

Exacerbating the problem is the lack of a drug-testing policy within the MLB. The NFL (American Football) and the NBA (basketball) ban steroids and regularly test for them, but the MLB Players Association has so far resisted attempts to allow drug testers into their locker rooms.

Pressure is mounting for change, however, even before Dorgan convenes his hearing.

In a new Gallup poll of baseball fans commissioned by the USA Today newspaper and the CNN television network, 86 per cent said drug testing should be undertaken.

What particularly disturbs those who compile and administer the game's precious record books is that nearly 80 per cent of supporters polled believe steroids have contributed to an explosion in home run scoring.

Indeed, individual players have hit 40 home runs in a season 238 times in major league history.

Significantly, that mark has been reached 81 times (34 per cent) in the last five seasons. Of the 34 players in the 50-run club, 14 (41 per cent) joined in those same five seasons.

Curt Schilling, a pitcher with the Arizona Diamondbacks, told Sports Illustrated that steroids and an increasing focus on the importance of strength-training had contributed to the rise in the number of hits reaching the bleachers.

"You're seeing records not just being broken but completely shattered," he said.

"You sit there and look at some of these players and you know what's going on.

"Guys out there look like Mr Potato Head, with a head and arms and six or seven body parts that just don't look right."

Steroids are illegal in the United States unless they are prescribed by a doctor. But they are easily obtainable, especially just over the southern border in Mexico. Enough steroids for a 10-week 'cycle' can cost up to £300, but that is a small price to pay compared with the huge rewards on offer to the biggest hitters.

Caminiti has come under fire from former team-mates and current players who insist the problem is nowhere near as serious as he makes out.

Others adopt an ambivalent, if somewhat sinister, attitude to the cheats.

Jeromy Burnitz of the New York Mets said: "If somebody wants to do it, that's their decision. Whatever you think is fine. But when I'm 50 and I'm running around with my kids in the backyard and you're dead, that's your deal."