As one of sport’s most underachieving teams of the past decade, the one place you wouldn’t expect to find the Orioles is near the top of the list of those reportedly using performance-enhancing substances.

But the nature of the game being what it is, the burden of a chronic loser will be tougher to shed than the stigma attached to being a possible cheater. When the Mitchell report on steroid use in baseball listed 19 current or former Orioles, the first reaction wasn’t why, but how, could this be possible?

How could a team that hasn’t posted a winning record in 10 years possibly be relying on players who were using substances to improve their performances? And what kind of an impact will it have on a team admittedly in the throes of a makeover?

A casual glance at the list of those named in the Mitchell report is enough to suggest that the Orioles’ dismal performance over the last decade is at least part of the problem, leading to a revolving door that recycled more suspects than prospects as the team unsuccessfully used a Band-Aid approach while trying to heal its wounds.

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Of the 19 players named, Jay Gibbons and Brian Roberts are the only two who have spent their entire major league careers with the Orioles. On average those named with local ties have played with five different organizations, with 12 reported to have involvement either before or after they passed through Camden Yards, leaving the Orioles with a “why us?” complex.

While the center of attention, especially now that Rafael Palmeiro and Miguel Tejada are gone, revolves around Gibbons, who has admitted his transgressions, and Roberts, who was cited on admittedly flimsy evidence but hasn’t addressed the issue, many of those on the Orioles’ list of culprits are hardly household names.

One member of the organization who feels any negative impact will be short-term is Scott McGregor, a member of the club’s Hall Of Fame and currently a pitching coach in the minor league system. “Hopefully [the Mitchell report] will bring some closure,” he said. “It just seems like [the steroid issue] has been around the club for so long — ever since the Raffy-Miggy thing — and it’s something we need to get behind us.”

At the minor league level, where testing is much more stringent than it is in the big leagues, McGregor thinks it’s a nonissue. “Down there it’s just a bunch of kids playing the game, it’s not a big thing,” he insisted. “Every month something’s going on — the whole organization, players, managers and coaches are getting tested, with the guys on the 40-man roster tested under the MLB agreement.

“Occasionally you’ll hear some talk [about the steroid issue] but basically it’s just ‘who’s pitching tonight and what we can do to win a game.’ They don’t get caught up in it.”

The innocence of the minor leagues may keep those playing there from getting “caught up” in the problem — and it may be the Orioles’ best chance to get out from under the cloud of suspicion that has engulfed the club for the last several years. Their quickest, perhaps only, escape route will come with young players with fresh faces and a clean slate. The sooner the better, because winning is the only solution to the dilemma the Orioles now face.

The stigma of being associated with cheating, despite a record that would seemingly prove otherwise, isn’t going away overnight. And it will last as long as the losing.

The brutal truth of the matter is that in the wacky world of sports, winning cures all ills.

As Andy MacPhail tries to right a ship seemingly missing a rudder, he will find that shedding the club of its “loser” label will be a lot tougher than overcoming the fallout from the Mitchell Report.

It’s safe to say the Orioles will not get rid of one without the other. Progress off the field may be a key to success on it — but it won’t be noticed until the results indicate a change. And given the track record of the last 10 years, it’s more likely that the results will have to show improvement at McGregor’s level, in the minor leagues, before they translate into success at the major league level.

MacPhail can only hope that his efforts pay off over the long haul, because over the short term it’s going to be a very tough sell.

A Baltimore native who has covered the local and national sports scene for more than 40 years, Jim Henneman is a past president of the Baseball Writers Association of America and an active voter for baseball's Hall Of Fame. His column also appears weekly in Press Box. He can be reached at sportscoper@aol.com