When Roger Maris was chasing Babe Ruth’s home-run record back in 1961, the nation’s sandlots, corner bars and living rooms were gripped in fevered debate. Were 61 dingers in 162 games as good as 60 in 154? Was the ball livelier and the pitching weaker? Did the cooler, drier air of night games make a difference? Would the upstart’s surpassing of the icon be forever qualified with an asterisk?

With baseball now enthralled by another home-run derby, the innocent squabbling of 37 years ago over trivia, statistics and minutia seems so quaint, so innocent — so altogether preferable to today’s argument about pharmacology.

St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire leads the assault with 53 homers as of Sunday, putting him just ahead of Maris’s pace. He’s big, he’s strong, he’s sharp-eyed and patient at the plate. He’s on androstenedione.

Andros, as it’s called in the performance-enhancing trade, raises the level of the male hormone testosterone, which builds lean muscle and promotes recovery after injury. In other words, it does pretty much what anabolic steroids do without such annoying side-effects as brain tumors or ruined livers.

That’s according to authorities at the highest, most impartial level — the St. Louis Cardinals medical staff. In a statement, remarkably like those produced by Big Tobacco’s scientists, released before Sunday’s game with the Pirates, the Cards’ medics described andros as a natural substance with no proven steroid effects nor significant side effects. And since current research lacks documentary evidence of any adverse side effects, the docs say they cannot object to Mark’s choice to use this legal and over-the-counter supplement. At least, presumably, as long as he keeps the turnstiles spinning.

This footnote to baseball history comes, coincidentally, just as a new federal study shows that the increased use of marijuana and alcohol by teens closely tracks the acceptibility of those drugs, the perception that they are harmless, soft and safe, by the adults they see as role models. Expect testosterone boosting to become the next juvenile kick should McGwire park number 62 in the upper deck.

The Cardinal’s doctors may be making a lot of assumptions as to the safety of andros and the long-term well-being of their star, but they are correct on one point — it is legal. In Major League Baseball, that is. It’s banned by the National Football League, but everyone knows what a bunch of sissies they are.