I feel cheated. Don Fehr just can't walk out the door like that. Not after a quarter century as the head of the baseball players' union. Not after reigning as one of the most powerful men in sports.

And certainly not before he tells all on the union's role in aiding and abetting what for all time will be known as the Steroid Era.

He can't just leave like that, turning over the union gig to 47-year-old attorney Michael Weiner.

Sure, there are players who feel the union may be in need of a new face (though Weiner isn't that new; he's been with the union for two decades). But if I were a player, especially one who did not play when one could hardly tell the difference between baseballs and Super Balls, I'd stamp "Not Accepted" on Fehr's resignation letter.

Heck, if I was Albert Pujols, I'd grab Fehr by the back the neck as he was running out the door, plant him behind his desk and say, "Not until you tell everyone why."

Why did the union block drug testing until 2004?

Why did the union say nothing as players were sneaking into toilets to stab themselves in the butt just before the national anthem?

Why did the union allow the "culture" of drug use to occur?

Of course, the questions are almost rhetorical. Fehr is credited with overseeing an era in which player salaries soared tenfold. And since the 1994 players' strike, the sport has been without labor strife, a period unmatched by any of the other major pro sports.

But those gains came at a heavy price, one that will cost baseball for decades – maybe not so much financially (fans still continue to spin the turnstiles) but in the imagery of needles and syringes and little clear vials.

Don, How do you feel about a generation of your clients being shunned by baseball's Hall of Fame?

C'mon, is there a fan out there who doesn't wonder about an overpowering hitter or pitcher these days -- no matter the absence of any evidence of their use of PEDs?

I wonder, and I hate that I do.

Don, should YOU be inducted in the Hall?

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig appears to be public (or at least media) enemy No. 1 on the list of those most culpable for baseball's Powerball period. But Fehr has to be No. 2.

He was adamant against testing until it became clear that the use of PEDs was pervasive and, if nothing was done, permanent. Congress was knocking. Former players were twisting in the wind. Former trainers were refusing to stay silent.

Only when it got ugly -- when 104 of 1,198 players tested in 2003 (anonymously . . . ha!) came up positive -- did the union acquiesce and agree to a policy for testing and punishment.

Fehr's stonewalling said early on that the union was hiding something, that it had no real motive or incentive for proving the game was clean as long as no one could prove it wasn't. Then came the so-called Anonymous 104.

Don, were you surprised the number was that high?

I'd like to ask him, before he's out the door.

AP photo