Paging Arthur Bryant’s – the Kansas City Royals are cooked.

If parents out there are worried about the effects of steroids on the national pastime, may I suggest a trip to a Kansas City Royals game? Because if there’s any group of players out there who clearly can’t spell stanozolol, much less inject it in their backsides, it’s got to be these hapless Royals. Even before their 17-game spiral, the Royals stunk like the stockyards – at 38-80, they’re a train wreck, and nobody’s unable to turn away.

I was at Royals Stadium in 1985 for Denkinger’s Folly – the last time the Royals sniffed the playoffs. You might remember a 21-year-old fireballer named Bret Saberhagen; that year, he won 20 en route to a Cy Young and a World Series title. He would have been the youngest Cy Young winner ever, in fact, if it weren’t for the antics of crackhead Dwight Gooden, who one-upped Saberhagen in the den of depravity known as New York City.

Comparing Zack Greinke to Bret Saberhagen might not be fair. Saberhagen had a strong supporting cast, led by Hall of Famer George Brett at third. “Moneyball” fans might remember the effusive praise heaped upon uber-prospect Mark Teahen, now manning the hot corner for today’s Royals; Teahen’s crummy .656 OPS and 78 Ks prove that Billy Beane’s brainy statheads were just plain wrong.

No pitcher on the active roster has a winning record. One – Rule 5 pickup Andrew Sisco – has an ERA under 4.00. There are plenty of players not pulling their weight – All-Star Ken Harvey and Rookie of the Year Angel Berroa both look like they’ve been watching too many Bob Hamelin workout tapes and not enough Tom Emanski’s Defensive Drills – but if there’s a convenient scapegoat for the failure of this KC Monsterpiece, it’s gotta be Greinke.

When Greinke, the face of the Royals’ new youth movement, made his debut last year, he was hailed as Saberhagen’s heir apparent. If the first year and a half of the Greinke era is any indication of the future, the Royals ought to consider exiling their crown prince to Elba.

Elba, Nebraska that is – a short drive from their AAA team in Omaha.

If Greinke had been just bad, that’d be one thing. But here he is running his mouth on Internet message boards and dragging his girlfriend into his season-long funk.

I’ve been to a few Promise Keepers meetings in my time, so I know a thing or two about relationships. And Dr. Skip has a prescription for you, Zack Greinke – learn to be a real man. Maybe the rest of your slacker teammates will take the hint.

Until then, somebody call Oklahoma Joe’s. Because these Royals just don’t cut the mustard.

Skip Bayless is a columnist for E$PN and a frequent correspondent on the hit E$PN2 morning show “Cold Pizza.” He will be appearing at Tape World at the Richardson Square Mall this Saturday, August 20, to sign autographs and promote his new CD, “Honkin’ on Durwood: Skip Bayless and Steve Palermo Play the Songs of Charles Mingus.”