I woke in the night and said, “Of course. Why else would Roger Clemens throw at Mike Piazza’s head? Why else would he throw the barrel of a broken bat at him? He was so juiced on steroids he couldn’t see straight.”

My midnight musings had no proof steroids were involved in those ugly incidents from the 2000 season games between the Yankees and the Mets, but it seems to fit.

Thursday’s report on the abuse of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball by the Mitchell commission devoted nine pages to Mr. Clemens, more than any other player received. And why not? Roger got more money, more limelight and more records than any other implicated player. Except Barry Bonds.

Now the two may be forever joined at the hips, the same hips their trainers and “friends” injected with steroids. Those hips, bulging with steroids and cash-stuffed wallets along with the rest of the bodies should be banned, now and forever, from baseball and the hall of fame.

A huge amount of blame for the sorry state of the game today rests with Commissioner Bud Selig and players union boss Donald Fehr. They were as seduced by steroids as surely as the players and they should both be out of a job. The new commissioner (bringing Fay Vincent back would be a smart move) should impose lifetime bans on players who can be reasonably shown to have been involved with steroids. That means Messrs. Bonds and Clemens, Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmiero.

Why? Because that’s the only way to send the message of how serious this problem is and would indicate that organized baseball is ready, for the first time, to take it seriously. Absent a lifetime ban from the sport, all you’ll get is the kind of cat-and-mouse games we see in the Tour de France. If a player knows getting caught just once means he’s out of baseball forever, he’ll know the price is just too high.

A few years ago, Roger Clemens announced he’d be wearing a Yankees cap on his plaque in Cooperstown. Instead, that Yankees cap will forever rest above one of the marquee faces of the steroids scandal.

Even the Yankees don’t deserve that.