The biggest referendum on Major League Baseball’s steroid era will be announced Wednesday, and it should come with the whack of a Louisville Slugger.

That’s when the rendering of a resounding “no” on the Hall of Fame candidacies of Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa should be announced in voting by the Baseball Writers Association of America.

Mark McGwire has already been repeatedly passed over, but now come first-timers Bonds, Clemens and Sosa, the largest, most star-driven lineup yet of those soiled by association with performance enhancing drugs to come up for a vote.

Appearance on 75 percent of the ballots cast is required for admission to baseball’s shrine in Cooperstown, N.Y.  Judging by the reception McGwire has received so far, drawing fewer than 25 percent in each of five years, the welcome for Bonds, Clemens and Sosa will not be a warm one. Nor should it be.

The criteria for selection is fairly straightforward: “Voting shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.”

 Remember those three words, “integrity, sportsmanship, character.” They are bound to trip up more of this year’s candidates than the nastiest breaking balls ever did.

History tells us the Hall of Fame is no showcase for saints. But just because there are already some scoundrels who have been allowed to wander in doesn’t mean the doors have to be opened wider for a newer crowd, the chemically enhanced cheats.

If MLB and the people who run it — the owners, commissioner’s office and players’ union — hadn’t buried their heads in the sand for so long before beginning a real drug testing program, the steroid era would not have become as pronounced as it became. Or, taken in so many.

And that’s part of the problem facing the electorate, determining who and how many actually used the needle and other means to juice up?

McGwire has belatedly come clean, while Sosa, Bonds and Clemens have been outed by other means. But the cloud of suspicion hangs over so many and has made a sham of too many entries in the record book. Every time somebody hits a tape-measure shot there are still cries of “juice!”

Bonds, as much as anybody, became the face for that sordid period in baseball history, growing in front of our eyes physically along with his mushrooming stats. The sad part is that he didn’t need to turn to science to boost his credentials to get into the Hall of Fame. He was averaging 32 home runs a season (1986-98) before the enhancements became prevalent.

But between 1999 and ’07, when testimony suggests Bonds went to the medicine cabinet on a regular basis, he managed to average 39 home runs a season even as he got older.

It might be too late to clean up the record book, but there is still time to keep from further sullying Cooperstown.

———

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.