Dave Kindred

When the Orioles scheduled "Rafael Palmeiro Day" in celebration of the slugger's 3,000th hit and his advance toward the 600-home run level — where he would join Henry Aaron and Willie Mays as the only men to reach both those numbers — it seemed the right thing to do.

It's not likely that many people outside of Baltimore changed vacation plans to be at Camden Yards on August 14. Palmeiro's career had been built in silence, with no sensational records, no World Series heroics, no self-absorbed theatrics. Until he pointed a finger at those congressional bloodhounds and said, "Period," Palmeiro might have been best known as the only professional athlete hunk endorsing Viagra.

That moment of unequivocal denial on Capitol Hill changed everything. Certainly, the contrast in demeanor helped Palmeiro. Shamefaced Mark McGwire squirmed like a man with terminal jock itch. Sammy Sosa developed a previously unknown aversion to speaking English. Jose Canseco denied the validity, if not the veracity, of his own words. Rafael Palmeiro, handsome and elegant, pointed a finger and said, "I have never used steroids. Period. I don't know how to say it any more clearly than that. Never."

With that declaration on March 17, with his condemnation of Canseco for having written that he injected Palmeiro with steroids, and with the story of his family's escape to America from "the communist tyranny that still reigns over my homeland of Cuba," Palmeiro gained national attention that his work in baseball had never earned. He moved from anonymity to respect. He became a first-ballot lock for the Hall of Fame.

And now?

Now we know that the Palmeiro "period" might better have been a comma followed by "except on special occasions, such as days that end in 'y.' "

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No player ever has fallen more quickly from favor. Period.

Raffy's day has been called off. Most likely, his first-ballot election to Cooperstown won't happen, either, though it's not nearly as black and white an issue as many would make it. It's a gray area.

INTERACTIVE Hall of Fame or not? NBCSports.com columnists chime in on Rafael Palmeiro's chances Reuters file

The use of most steroids without a doctor's prescription has been illegal in the United States since 1991. Other sports and the Olympics banned steroids as performance-enhancing drugs. But only in 2002 did baseball put steroids on its banned-substances list, and only last year did it test for steroids. Anyone who used steroids without a prescription after 1991 was committing a criminal act. He might have known the use was unethical. Until 2002, however, he was not violating any rule of competition in Major League Baseball.