It was another congressional hearing, and another opportunity to round up the usual suspects and give them a beating.

Earlier this week, baseball Commissioner Bud Selig and Players Association director Don Fehr traveled to Capitol Hill to absorb the latest in a series of smackdowns from members of Congress.

I’m not here to defend Selig and Fehr. And these humiliating sessions have, in the past, shoved Selig and Fehr into strengthening the game’s anti-drug policy and testing program.

And progress has been made in the mission to clean up the sport.

But why are baseball’s owners and GMs given a free pass?

They’re a big part of the problem.

As an industry, baseball is trying to wean itself off the performance-enhancing drugs that fueled an increase in homers and a huge boost in total revenue.

But any gains have been shorted by the simple reality that baseball’s owners and GMs can’t wean themselves off the drug-enhanced sluggers.

Essentially, the owners and GMs have become enablers. They continue to reward documented or suspected juicers.

The Cardinals are part of that culture. They signed pitchers Ryan Franklin and Troy Cate, each of whom flunked a steroids test. They coddled Rick Ankiel last summer after it was revealed that he’d purchased human growth hormone in 2004.

The Cardinals traded for Troy Glaus, who, according to Sports Illustrated, received multiple shipments of steroids to his home in 2003 and 2004. Ankiel and Glaus weren’t disciplined by baseball because their actions predated baseball’s current drug policy.

The question I keep coming back to is this: Why should I care?

And business is booming at the ballparks, and from that I can assume that most fans don’t care about this issue, either.

So why should we be outraged over the chemical manipulation of sports competition when the people who own and run the teams continue to cycle, or recycle, the drug cheats?

The only real hope is that the population of cheaters will be dramatically thinned out in the future by the deterrent of legitimately rigid testing and harsh punishment.

Jason Giambi signed a $120 million deal with the Yankees, but he isn’t the only example. The Houston Astros traded five players to Baltimore for Miguel Tejada and picked up the remaining $26 million of the six-year, $72 million contract given to Tejada in 2004. Tejada, who was all over the Mitchell Report, may now face prosecution if he is believed to have lied to congressional investigators over his involvement with performance enhancers. But that’s OK; he’s the new baseball hero in Houston.

Jose Guillen received a three-year, $36 million contract from the Kansas City Royals on the same day he got suspended for 15 days for violating the drug policy.

Another Mitchell Report star, closer Eric Gagne, signed a one-year deal with Milwaukee for $10 million.

What message does this send to impressionable young athletes in high school and college? Their parents, coaches and trainers warn them about the dangers of steroids and other drugs. The athletes are told that this junk can kill you or harm you and ruin your life.

And all of that is true.

Still, it must be awfully confusing when the same young athletes see the professional drug cheats cashing in as free agents or being coveted in trades.