Baseball thought it had moved past it.

The images of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa sitting in front of Congress, sidestepping questions about performance enhancing drugs was fading.

Rafael Palmeiro’s finger wagging in front of the same Congress was becoming a distant memory.

The PED-related trials of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens were over.

Then Melky Cabrera came along and everything came flooding back.

Cabrera is another example of why players toss PEDs down their gullets and inject them into their hips and glutes.

They work.

It’s not hard to tell when Cabrera, who was nabbed with abnormally high levels of testosterone in his system and suspended 50 games recently, began (allegedly) taking the stuff.

He was a career .266 hitter in six seasons with the N.Y. Yankees and Atlanta Braves before 2011.

He hit a soft .255 with the Braves in 2010, who let Cabrera walk after the season with no intention of re-signing him.

At this point, Cabrera probably became desperate. After all, his career was fading fast. Only the Kansas City Royals wanted him.

He signed with K.C. and had a career year, batting .305 — 25 points higher than his previous best season.

This year, he was leading the National League in hits with 159 and carried a .346 average at the time of his suspension.

Pre-2011 he was a .266 hitter. Post 2011 he is a .322 hitter.

Do the math.

Perhaps the worst part of this saga is he tried to cover it up with a fake website.

I can understand why guys try to get away with it. The risks are worth it.

If they didn’t work, no one would be doing it.

Cabrera signed a one-year, $1.25 million deal with the Royals after his middling season in 2010.

He was in line to snag a long-term deal this offseason that could have been worth up to $20 million per season.

Not anymore.

He did the worst thing a player in his position could do.

He got caught.

Now, baseball people have to throw out what he has done the last two seasons. That sample is as tainted as the one he gave Major League Baseball to test for PEDs.

He’s not the only one to gamble.

Players like Cabrera are the ones who gain the most from the boost PEDs provide. Had Cabrera not been caught, he would have cashed in big time. Countless others probably haven’t been caught and got big money because of it.

Other players have no excuse, like Bonds’ (alleged) juicing.

He didn’t need them. He was a sure-fire Hall of Famer before he (allegedly) dipped into the PED well. For what?

There should be a wing in the Baseball Hall of Fame for dolts like Bonds and Clemens — players who (allegedly) cheated and didn’t need to.

Bonds and Clemens still have money. The only thing Cabrera has now is his shame.

Mike Kilroy is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle.