Bud Selig can now tip his white cowboy hat, spew tobacco juice into a spittoon and declare the citizens safe from the lawless gangs of PED users.

Selig, the commissioner and self-appointed steroid sheriff, can pound his chest and say he has cleaned up this town called Major League Baseball.

Mission accomplished.

Well, not so fast.

“The Biogenesis 14” have been punished — except for Alex Rodriguez, who is appealing his 211-game suspension and will be allowed to play, and get paid, for the remainder of this season.

The other 13, including Ryan Braun several weeks ago, took their punishment like men.

What do these 14 have in common, though? None actually tested positive for PEDs.

What tripped them up was a disgruntled former employee of the Biogenesis clinic, Porter Fischer, who began keeping documentation of the doping and shared it with a Miami newspaper in January.

Had Fischer not been stiffed $4,000 by Biogenesis founder Tony Bosch, most likely none of this would have come to light.

And Selig wouldn’t have a victory to crow about.

Selig didn’t really catch anyone. A posse consisting of Fischer and journalists at the newspaper are the real heroes here.

This does nothing to clean up the game.

How many other players are doping? How many other players are getting their human growth hormones and testosterone and steroids from companies not under the MLB microscope?

Probably more than 14.

MLB has no real good way to catch these guys. Most tests can’t detect HGH and chemists are whipping up new forms of undetectable PEDs every day.

The only way this is truly going to stop is through the players. That’s already beginning to happen.

Clean players are fed up with the users, and are making their voices heard.

In the 1990s, PED users were protected by their teammates. That’s not happening now. Peer pressure can be good, too.

Players are ultimately going to be the ones who will clean up baseball, not Bud Selig.

Meanwhile, people involved in other pro leagues are being awfully quiet because they know their sports are also littered with PED users.

Does anyone honestly think the NFL is clean? The NBA? The NHL?

I do commend Selig and Major League Baseball for at least attempting to clean up the sport. To anyone who thinks PEDs don’t help, just ask this: why are these players willing to risk their reputation and careers to use the stuff?

The answer: Because it works.

Baseball will never truly be clean.

There will always be someone with a black hat riding into town with a wagon full of pills, syringes and creams.

Mike Kilroy is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle.