2004 was a great year for Major League Baseball. We saw Ken Griffey smack his 500th homer, while Barry Bonds sailed past 700. Randy Johnson chucked a perfect game. Ichiro broke the hits record. It was a year bereft of tied All-Star games, or labour strife, or any of the other silliness that usually undermines the game. Even the situation in Montreal was finally resolved, if rather unhappily for fans of Les Expos.

To top it off, fans were treated to some high drama in the playoffs and an unprecedented comeback. While the World Series wasn't terribly exciting, it did provide a feel-good champion for casual fans not living in New York or St. Louis. All in all, it was a marvellous year for the sport.

Of course, baseball can go only so long without a crisis, and almost immediately after Doug Mientkiewicz slipped away into the night with the last out of the World Series, the game became swathed in scandal.

Steroids, long a spectre lurking beneath the sport's surface, have become baseball's 800 lb. Gorilla, thanks to continuing revelations from the BALCO hearings, and a book penned by another 800 lb gorilla.

Jose Canseco's tell-all memoir painted everyone this side of Marge Schott with the steroid brush, and provided the United States Congress with enough impetus to hold hearings on the subject in an effort to clean up the sport. Certainly, there's nothing else more pressing on their agenda.

Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi have all had their credibility seriously tainted by the scandal, while others like Sammy Sosa and Ivan Rodriguez have also come under suspicion of the syringe.

Thanks to the complete lack of a steroid policy on the part of baseball, fans are left to wonder if any of the records or accomplishments they've cheered over the past twenty years was achieved cleanly. Why, even the 1992 and 1993 World Series victories so cherished by Blue Jays fans might be the product of chemical enhancement. After all, Canseco was a Jay at one point. Perhaps baseball's only Canadian organization has been a safe haven for steroid use for years. Hey, wasn't Ben Johnson Canadian?

Rest easy, gentle reader. Even a cursory look into the franchise's past reveals a landscape virtually devoid of suspiciously brawny sluggers. Indeed, there are legions of Jays alumni for whom even suggesting steroid use would be laughable. Here then are the top ten Jays Least Likely to Have Taken Steroids:

10. Alexis Rios 6'5" 194lbs

Last year's promising rookie right fielder resembled something of a stick figure standing in the batter's box. He has good speed, excellent range, a cannon arm, and is the definition of skinny. Parenthetically, just about every piece written about Rios last year mentioned the power that was expected of him once he "filled out." When that kind of pressure is exerted on a young player and attached to his eventual success at the major league level, is it really any wonder there's a steroid problem? Rios has apparently added 10 pounds to his frame for 2005. Let's hope it's all natural.

9. John Olerud 6'5" 220 lbs

The slender first baseman generated his power with a swing of singular grace and beauty rather than something out of a test tube. Can anyone seriously imagine the uber-wholesome Olerud shooting up? Didn't think so. This is a man who once listed "milk and cookies" among his culinary specialties. Sadly, the Jays gave Olerud away because he didn't hit for enough power. Never mind the Gold Gloves, the .300 average and the 100 walks a year. And despite the lanky frame, he's still managed 248 homers.

8. Phil Niekro 6'1" 180 lbs

It's hard to imagine the 48-year-old Niekro was juiced up during his brief stint with the Jays, unless he was Beta-testing Viagra. If so, it didn't help his pitching, as he was roughed up in three starts before being released.

7. Ernie Whitt 6'2" 200 lbs

In his 1985 book "From Worst to First," Buck Martinez cites Whitt's appetite for doughnuts, which once earned him a sign reading "Tubby 2" on his locker (Bill Caudill was "Tubby 1"). Whitt never really seemed fat, he just seemed built like a catcher, with the kind of stockiness fit for activities of a plate-blocking nature. He smacked 134 career homers, almost all of them after turning 30. Had that great, clubbing, drop-to-a-knee swing that he used to launch many a baseball beyond the right field fence at Exhibition Stadium.

6. Josh Towers 6'1" 165 lbs

Towers badly wants a spot in the Jays rotation, but a hunger strike just isn't the way to go. The emaciated 5th starter is the only hurler in Jays history to wear a single digit, 7, as his uniform number. This is because a single digit is all that will fit on the back of his uniform. Perhaps he would last more than six innings per start if he ate a solid meal.

5. Alfredo Griffin 5'11 165 lbs

Just as Whitt was built like a catcher, Alfredo was built like shortstop: lean to the point of waif-like. Ah, the mid-1980s, when you could often guess a player's position just watching him bat. Griffin and his 24 home runs in 1962 games didn't give anyone the impression of slugging DH.

4. Otis Nixon 6'2" 180lbs

I had to double check Nixon's measurements, because he always seemed quite a bit smaller than 6-2, 180. Nixon built his career on speed rather than power, as evidenced by his 620 steals and .314 slugging percentage. His drug problems were of the illicit variety: a trip to drug rehab while with the Indians and a month-long cocaine suspension in 1992. Steroids would have played against Nixon's strengths; if those bunts had travelled any farther, he wouldn't have had nearly as many infield hits.

3. Cecil Fielder 6'3" 240 lbs (yeah, right)

In his Historical Abstract Bill James cites a later playing weight of 261 lbs for Fielder, "leaving unanswered the question of what he might weigh if he put his other foot on the scale." Big Daddy wasn't quite that big when he suited up for the Jays, but he returned from a 1989 stint in Japan possessing both the approximate size and power of Godzilla. He went on to lead the league in homers a couple of times, bashing 319 in total. He was, as James put so succinctly phrased it, "a big fat who hits home runs."

2. Craig Grebeck 5'7" 148 lbs

Before there was David Eckstein, there was Grebeck. Standing just 5'7" and looking about 12 years old, The World's Mightiest BatBoy™ was easily one of the smallest players of his generation. Despite his size, Grebeck enjoyed a couple of big years with the Jays, including a .363 batting average in 1999. Grebeck did post a .340 OBP for his career, and could probably have been a quality regular for a few seasons, a la Eckstein, had he been given the chance.

1. David Wells 6'3" 248 lbs

Ah, the Boomer. The portly port-sider, and 2-time Blue Jay, has a body by BEERCO rather than BALCO. At 42, he still cranks his fastball up to 90, never walks anybody and so can still post a respectable ERA. This year he takes his act to Boston, where the large number of Irish pubs may drive Wells' physique into Rich Garces territory. Say what you will about Wells and his disgruntled departure from Toronto, he was never boring to watch, and he never shirked his duties on the mound.