Spare me the shock.

Spare me the outrage.

Spare me the denials.

Did we really need Jose Canseco to tell us Mark McGwire was on steroids?

As if we didn’t already know.

A reporter busted McGwire long ago for taking androstenedione — a form of testosterone-producing steroid now banned by baseball. If McGwire was taking andro, why wouldn’t he take something a little stronger to make him hit the ball a little farther?

Let’s stop playing dumb, shall we? Let’s stop treating Canseco like some sort of low-down, lying scum for actually having the gall to stick a syringe not only in McGwire’s buttocks but in McGwire’s myth. Let’s just come out and admit what we’ve suspected for quite some time now: McGwire’s home run total, just like Barry Bonds’ home run total, is as artificial as the nose on Michael Jackson’s face.

Just because Canseco is a loose cannon doesn’t make him a liar. Sure, Canseco might be a complete knucklehead in all other aspects of life, but when he writes a book on steroid use in baseball, he is the foremost expert. If anybody knew what players were using steroids back in the 1990s, it’s the ultimate juicer himself.

If Canseco writes in his new book that he personally injected steroids into McGwire’s backside in a bathroom stall in the Oakland locker room, why should we not believe him? The common question being asked is, “Why would anybody believe Canseco?” I’ve got a better question: “Why would anybody believe baseball?”

The baseball establishment is already trying to discredit Canseco by saying he is making these outlandish claims about McGwire just to sell books and make a little bit of money. But hasn’t baseball used steroids to sell its game and make a whole lot more money?

Canseco’s claims in 2005 aren’t any more outlandish or inflated than McGwire’s home run total in 1998. If Canseco makes money on his book, it won’t be nearly as much as the millions made by the hulked-up, bulked-up McGwire for breaking Roger Maris’ home run record.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Steroids aren’t ruining baseball. Steroids saved baseball.

The dramatic duel between McGwire and Sosa is credited with being the key catalyst in helping baseball recover from the lingering resentment of the 1994 strike. Isn’t it clear now that without andro (and who knows what else) that there would have been no home run duel?

Maybe this is why we’re seeing many in the baseball media pile on Canseco the same way they piled on Steve Wilstein, the Associated Press reporter who broke the story about McGwire taking andro. It seems nobody is quite ready to admit that we were all duped seven years ago when McGwire broke the record.

Remember how you felt back then? It was one of those magical moments when you remember exactly what you were doing at the time. I was reading a bedtime story — The Little Red Caboose — to my daughter, Tess, when my wife rushed in and told me McGwire was up in the fourth.

Here’s what I wrote about McGwire the next day: “We don’t get that many stories to tell our grandkids. This one is a keeper, right up there with Lindbergh and man on the moon. Except this was a man and his moonshots. One small step for man, one stupendous, tremendous home run trot for mankind.”

Sadly, that summer now feels more like a bummer.

At the time, it seemed too good to be true.

And now we know why.

Because it wasn’t true.