The juice is out of the bottle now, but who is going to clean up the spill?

Major League Baseball can’t do anything about Jason Giambi’s admission to a San Francisco grand jury that it was not a steady diet of In-N-Out Burgers that put all that muscle on him, but that he had, indeed, used anabolic steroids under the guidance of Greg Anderson, trainer of Barry Bonds, Gary Sheffield, and other suspects.

MLB’s toothless drug policy provides that a player receives no punishment, merely some coddling in the form of “counseling,” in the event of a failed drug test. To the best of our knowledge – don’t forget, baseball and its players’ association agreed to keep test results confidential, pass or fail – Giambi hasn’t failed a drug test; he merely admitted that had one been administered in 2003, he probably would have.

The government is also powerless, since Giambi and the other athletes – Bonds and Sheffield among them – who were called before the grand jury investigating Balco testified with full immunity from prosecution.

That leaves only one organization with the power to make Giambi pay for the sin of being a cheater: the New York Yankees, an outfit that loves to throw its 26 world championships and 39 pennants in your face, a team that bills itself, unashamedly, as “the greatest franchise in the history of sports.” Well, now the Yankees can lead the way in another category.

If George Steinbrenner has the guts, and the appetite, to eat the rest of Giambi’s $120 million contract, the Yankees could land a powerful blow in the fight to rid baseball of steroid abuse.

They can put Jason Giambi on waivers with the intention of giving him his unconditional release. Since there is a lot more money left on his deal than there are hits left in his bat, no other team in baseball will touch Giambi with a Louisville Slugger.

That will leave the former two-time MVP where he belongs, out of baseball and in permanent disgrace. It will be a hefty contract to swallow. Compared to the amount the Yankees still owe on Giambi’s contract, all the money The Boss wasted on the likes of Sterling Hitchcock, Jose Contreras, Javier Vazquez, and Aaron Boone will seem like chump change. Eating 82 million of his own dollars to dump Giambi will leave Steinbrenner burping up greenbacks until the Red Sox win their 27th World Championship.

Still, it has to be done. How else to send the message to the new generation of baseball druggies that cheaters will not be tolerated?

Don’t expect Commissioner Bud Selig to do it. This is the same man who made a deal with the devil in 1998, ignoring the bulging muscles of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa while reaping the benefits of their home run totals. Nor will Donald Fehr and the players’ union step up to the plate; they were the ones who made a pact with Selig, signed with a syringe, that instituted baseball’s cowardly drug policy.

Enter The Boss. First, of course, the Yankees will try to void the remainder of Giambi’s deal by invoking the so-called “morals clause” included in the uniform player’s contract as adopted in the most recent collective bargaining agreement, which expires in 2006.

The clause states that a guaranteed contract like Giambi’s can be voided if a player fails, refuses, or neglects “to conform his personal conduct to the standards of good citizenship and good sportsmanship or to keep himself in first-class physical condition or to obey the club’s training rules.”

Possessing and using anabolic steroids without a doctor’s prescription is a crime everywhere, which reasonably should constitute a lack of conformity “to the standards of good citizenship.” That’s strike one.

The ineffectiveness of baseball’s drug policy notwithstanding, it is a nearly universally recognized belief that using anabolic steroids to obtain a competitive edge over other players is cheating. Or, in other words, a violation of “good sportsmanship.” Strike two.

And it might not be too hard for a doctor to connect that benign tumor in Giambi’s pituitary gland with steroid abuse. Since the tumor cost Giambi most of his 2004 season, that would no doubt constitute a failure of Giambi “to keep himself in first-class physical condition.” Strike three.

It seems like a slam-dunk case for the Yankees, but American juries are known to return strange judgments when it comes to celebrity athletes.

In that case, it would fall upon the Yankees to do the right thing, which does not always come easy to them. The same organization that forbids its players to grow mustaches has never seen cheating as a serious offense, employing the likes of Howie Spira, Darryl Strawberry, Steve Howe, David Wells, and Dwight Gooden. And oh yeah, the owner himself is a convicted felon.

Forget that punishing Giambi, a shot player, while turning a blind eye to Sheffield, a still-productive player who admitted to the same offense, is hypocritical and unfair. In time, when his hits run out, Sheffield, too, will get what’s coming to him.

Right now, the Yankees have a chance to do a real service to baseball, its tarnished history, and its wounded fan base. They can tell Jason Giambi, admitted druggie and cheat, to take a cab out of town and they’ll pay the fare, no matter how high.

That would be a legacy much more important than pennants, much more lasting than World Series rings.

Mr.Matthews is the host of the “Wally and the Keeg” sports talk show heard Monday-Friday from 4-7 p.m. on 1050 ESPN radio.