The baseball field honoring former Rangers first baseman Rafael Palmeiro is located at Fort Worth Christian School. The one honoring Sammy Sosa is at a Chicago YMCA.

Mark McGwire's is in Huntington Beach, Calif. And the field honoring Barry Bonds is at his high school alma mater near San Francisco.

Each is called "Inspiration Field" and was funded, at least in part, by a $100,000 grant from the Major League Baseball Players Trust for Children. The plaque at Palmeiro's field dedicates it to all children "dreaming of hitting a BIG LEAGUE home run."

No players have been selected for Inspiration Field grants since 2003, the year that Major League Baseball began testing for steroids. That was also the final year of the players association's made-for-TV home run contest, called the Big League Challenge.

TOM FOX / DMN

A Rafael Palmeiro plaque greets visitors at the Fort Worth Christian School baseball field.

Several of the competitors in the Big League Challenge and a third of the Inspiration Field honorees have since been associated with steroids in news accounts.

The legacy of what's now being called baseball's steroid era extends beyond tainted records.

"I'm not sure the naming of these fields passes the snicker test," said Kirk Hanson, executive director of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. He called it a classic dilemma in philanthropy: honoring people and companies that subsequently fall into disrepute.

Judy Heeter, the director of business affairs for the players association, disagreed: "This is not an Enron situation."

Heeter works closely with the association's charity efforts and said that at the time the Inspiration Field grants were made, the players were "home run hitters and heroes" to kids.

"Those achievements, I believe, are still heroic to large numbers of fans," she said.

More recently, she said, the players have broadened their charity efforts and are now focusing more on bringing baseball and the lessons that it can teach to inner-city kids. This year, she said, the players made their first $1 million donation, which will help build housing for the needy in New Orleans.

Palmeiro's Inspiration Field was dedicated in August 2003. That was 19 months before his infamous appearance before the congressional hearing when he jabbed his index finger toward the panel and said he had never used steroids, period. Later in 2005, Palmeiro was suspended for 10 games after testing positive for a powerful steroid but denied intentional use. He has been out of baseball since the end of the '05 season.

Sosa denied steroid use at that same congressional hearing through a statement read by his lawyer. McGwire declined to answer most questions, though he did say there had been a steroid problem in baseball.

The specter of performance-enhancing substances haunts Bonds' every swing as he chases Hank Aaron's record of 755 career homers. Baseball commissioner Bud Selig hasn't said whether he will be in attendance when the career home run record falls.

Kevin Donahue, athletic director at Junipero Serra High School in San Mateo, Calif., says the steroid issue doesn't taint his school's Inspiration Field, which honors Bonds.

"The purpose of the whole program is to help baseball," Donahue said. "It helped us."

Fort Worth Christian president Craig Smith said it's important to look at the big picture.

"In 2003, we were blessed to receive that gift," Smith said. "And we're still very grateful for the tremendous contribution that facility is making to our students."

Sosa and McGwire earned their grants for their 1998 home run race, when McGwire finished with a record 70 and Sosa hit 66. Bonds received his for hitting 73 homers in 2001, surpassing McGwire. Palmeiro got his for participating in the 2003 Big League Challenge, which the players association staged in partnership with ESPN.

Eight other players, including one anonymous, have received Inspiration Field grants from the players association. None of those names has been associated with steroid use.

The Big League Challenge, patterned after the classic television home run derby from nearly 50 years ago, began in 2000 and lasted four years. The top power hitters in baseball went to Las Vegas in early February for the tournament-style competition. Episodes were then televised during the regular season.

In his 2005 book, Juiced, Jose Canseco wrote about showing up in the clubhouse for the first Big League Challenge after using steroids and growth hormone to help his recovery from back surgery. He said he weighed about 255 pounds and was "just shredded with veins."

"Barry Bonds was nearby, and when he saw me, he just stood there and stared," Canseco wrote. The next spring, Canseco wrote, Bonds arrived at the Challenge with 40 pounds of added muscle.

In the four years of the Big League Challenge, the roster of competitors also included McGwire and Sosa as well as Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield. Bonds, Giambi and Sheffield testified in 2003 before a federal grand jury in the BALCO sports doping case.

Diane Lamb, an ESPN spokeswoman, said the Big League Challenge was not renewed after 2003 by mutual agreement between the network and the players association. "It was purely a business decision," she said.

Hanson, the Santa Clara professor, said he wouldn't change the names of the Inspiration Fields or any of the honorees. But he said the players association's focus on home runs was a commercial decision, not inspirational.

"What you want in young people is to be inspired to play their best, not just to hit home runs," he said.