"The admissions all seemed so casual, even nonchalant.

Three ballplayers took the witness stand in federal court Tuesday and, as expected, confirmed that they had received performance-enhancing drugs from Greg Anderson, Barry Bonds' childhood friend and weight trainer. They had testified to the same information in front of an ostensibly secret grand jury in 2003. But the players also all admitted Tuesday that they had juiced before they'd ever heard of Anderson or BALCO, the Burlingame lab that triggered a historic investigation into athletic doping and then spun off Bonds' current perjury trial.

Jason Giambi testified that Anderson ran some tests on his blood and urine in late 2002, then told him that he had tested positive for the steroid Deca-Durabolin. Anderson supplied him with BALCO's then-undetectable steroid and also offered to provide human growth hormone if Giambi wanted it. To paraphrase the American League's MVP of 2000: "Thanks anyway, I already have some."

His brother and former A's teammate, Jeremy Giambi, said Anderson's test on him revealed the steroid nandrolone. Defense attorney Cristina Arguedas apologized for inquiring into something that might be embarrassing. Jeremy Giambi said placidly: "No, it's not."

Marvin Benard, a former Bonds teammate with the Giants, said he bought his first steroid in Mexico after sustaining an injury during winter ball there in 1998. He chuckled a little when he had to clarify how he had injected it - "in my left cheek, my left butt cheek."

Benard said that it was understood in clubhouses that steroids could be obtained easily in Mexico.

"It was just there," he said.

Most trial witnesses have been advised to avoid generating drama on the stand, and these guys probably wanted to surrender to the inevitable and get out of court as fast as possible. That might account for their blase attitudes. Or maybe the revelations have piled up so constantly in the 7 1/2 years since the first BALCO raid that doping confessions fail to rouse anyone's emotions now. Ten years ago, a former major-league MVP admitting that he had taken a performance-enhancer, much less switched varieties, would have rocked the game.

Tuesday, Jason Giambi was just filling in details. He had already vaguely confessed before, putting him in a class with Alex Rodriguez, the late Ken Caminiti, Jose Canseco and Miguel Tejada - MVPs who have now admitted they obtained steroids."