Dusty Baker was right. This is McCarthyism — Charlie McCarthy-ism. Major league baseball players are empty wooden souls that come to life only through the manipulation of their all-powerful union. Speaking only when prompted, the incredible hulks insist that they should be considered innocent until proven guilty in the issue of steroid testing, confusing due process with obfuscation. The only remedy available for clearing their names isn’t an option because of the union’s desire to keep things murky and hazy. The union expects the suspicions to blow away as quickly as the nation’s attention span.

The players’ association has its members by the wallet.

Its message is pretty simple — dummy up!

Just shut up! Don’t speak until told. Don’t cast aspersions on each other. Don’t give the media any openings to challenge the integrity of the game. Band together and make enemies of those whose doubts seem steroid-enhanced in the wake of the BALCO supplement scandal.

John Smoltz probably can expect a phone call from the union. The Atlanta Braves’ closer broke the code, publicly expressing what has been privately known — baseball’s steroid-testing policy was nothing more than “a smoke screen.”

Former Tigers pitcher Todd Jones insisted that his plea for player silence during a Tampa Bay Devil Rays team meeting wasn’t a thinly masked edict from the union. He discussed the evils of finger-pointing while praising the virtues of keeping doubts within the confines of the clubhouse. Jones is a non-roster invitee in the Devil Rays’ camp. During his days in Detroit, he was the Tigers’ union representative.

“Players just need to hush,” Jones told CBS Sportsline. “Players need to hush their mouths. … The whole thing started with the players. Why would you want to blow the game up? Is this good for the game?”

But isn’t that what has gotten the game into its latest mess?

The union isn’t serving its members’ best interests in this situation. The players’ association has become the blueprint for labor strength — and not just in sports. When it flexes its muscle, management eventually buckles.

The union’s fingerprints are all over this mockery of a steroid policy, which institutes a ban only if a player has tested positive five times. The union has claimed many hard-fought victories, granting players financial liberation through free agency and salary arbitration. And the union is understandably hesitant to acquiesce even a shred of the power it seized.

But it should tell Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi and Sammy Sosa that the next time a showboating reporter challenges one of them to take a test, they should agree to any form of analysis at any time desired.

Not that it would prove anything, but at least it would display some interest in the public perception of baseball.

And that’s what matters most.

It’s not about what’s true, but what people want to believe.

The players’ association doesn’t want anyone to know whether the game is clean of steroids or not.

Baker, the Cubs’ manager, equates the paranoia about steroids with the Communist witch-hunts of the 1950s.

But nobody wants to admit that the growing mistrust is coming from within. The players know something is out of whack, but their union would rather serve as ventriloquist, instructing them on when and what to say.