New York ? Baseball’s All-Star managers are concerned fans might think many of the game’s top stars are using steroids.

“You hate to think that everybody is going be painted with the same broad brush,” Joe Torre of the New York Yankees said Tuesday. “I know when Darryl Kile passed away, a lot of people said, ‘You think it was steroids?’ only because it was so prominent in the news, and that’s unfortunate.”

Former NL MVP Ken Caminiti and former AL MVP Jose Canseco admitted earlier this season that they used steroids. Canseco estimated up to 85 percent of major leaguers took muscle-enhancing drugs when he played.

“Unfortunately, for a lot of different reasons, we’re only getting one side of the story,” Arizona’s Bob Brenly said. “A lot of guys are being lumped into a category that don’t deserve to be in that category, and I think that’s extremely unfair. If and when testing does evolve, I think a lot of people will be surprised that the numbers aren’t as high as has been reported in some fronts right now.”

Baseball players aren’t randomly tested for steroids or any other drugs, Management lawyers have proposed testing during recent negotiations.

“The thing that is frightening to me for steroids is not the performance factor, but the health factor,” Torre said.

“And I certainly believe education is probably more important than anything else. You don’t want a short-term advantage to affect what the rest of your life is going to be like.”

Baseball has been helped by the recent power surge that saw Mark McGwire hit 70 home runs in 1998 to break Roger Maris’ record of 61, and Barry Bonds set a new mark with 73 last year.

Brenly doesn’t think the allegations of steroid use in the sport takes away from the Home Run Derby on Monday, a day before the All-Star game in Milwaukee.

“It’s very apparent as you look at some of the guys that are going to be involved in the Home Run Derby, it’s highly doubtful any of these guys are using any kind of steroids or artificial enhancements to increase their strength,” he said.

Torre, who has caught criticism with some of his choices to fill the substitue slots, also wasn’t happy with talk that players might boycott the All-Star game to embarrass commissioner Bud Selig, whose family controls the Milwaukee Brewers.

The union’s executive board is scheduled to meet Monday in Rosemont, Ill., to consider the labor situation, but probably won’t set a strike date then. The only player to say he would not play in the game as a labor protest was Boston pitcher John Burkett, who is 7-3 and likely wouldn’t have been picked, anyway.