Chances are, you've taken a good, long look at some of today's rising baseball stars and wondered if they've yet begun shaving. The Giants' Tim Lincecum, last year's NL Cy Young winner, looks like an extra from High School Musical. Boston's Dustin Pedroia, the reigning AL MVP, could pass for the paper boy.

Baseball has always been a young man's game, but it's even more so nowadays. Tampa Bay rode a bunch of kids to the World Series last year. The Twins had the youngest team in baseball and won 88 games. The Red Sox have rebuilt their roster around such young, upcoming stars as Pedroia, Jon Lester, Jonathan Papelbon and Jacoby Ellsbury.

It's not your imagination, either. The game is getting younger. Dave Studenmund, the noted stat guru, crunched the numbers and found that the average age of big-league players has gone down the last two years. Last year, in fact, the average age dropped by 1.1 years ... the largest one-year decline in history.

There’s no single reason for the change. But most observers agree that the drop in age is a natural consequence of baseball’s overdue campaign to remove steroids from the game.

Four years ago, baseball and its players union agreed on a stricter steroids policy that included random offseason testing and suspensions for first-time offenders.

It would be naive to think that some players aren’t finding ways to beat the system. But after years of turning a blind eye, baseball has taken a stand against illegal drugs. Home run totals are down. Older players –most notably Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds –were phased out of the game, their achievements diminished by suspected steroid use.

The smart teams saw the change coming. Theo Epstein, the young Red Sox general manager, told his scouts in the spring of 2005 that they’d better be prepared. Epstein placed even more emphasis on speed, pitching and defense. Ellsbury and Jed Lowrie, who were taken in the ’05 draft, contributed to a Sox team that lost to Tampa Bay in last year’s ALCS. They’re no longer the team of Manny Ramirez, who is gone, and David Ortiz, who is in decline.

The Rays proved you didn’t have to spend $100 million to win, making the Series with a $44 million payroll. Tampa Bay drafted well, made shrewd trades for young players and made one of the most stunning one-year breakthroughs in baseball history. Matt Garza, Evan Longoria and B. J. Upton, all shy of their 25th birthdays, were huge in October for the Rays.

It used to be that players hit their prime at 27 or 28. Fewer players are hanging around into their late 30s. With money getting tighter, teams need their prospects to advance through the system faster and be productive with the big club before they get that big second contract. So more players are getting more experience sooner and putting up prime-time numbers by their mid-20s.

So what’s the result? An astonishing array of rising major league players who are around age 25. Surely it’s no coincidence that, four years after steroid testing began, there’s a collection of young stars all around the same age. Suddenly, 25 is the new 28.

I put together a full team of players who are now 25 or will turn 25 during the upcoming season. It’s amazing how many of the top young guys are on the list. Let’s put it this way: I’ll take my “25 at 25” team and you can have the rest of the players in baseball. I’d like my chances in a seven-game series.

Who could argue with Brian McCann and Joe Mauer as the catchers? McCann leads all catchers in homers and RBIs over the last three seasons. Mauer is a two-time batting champ. I can wait for him to get healthy.

Prince Fielder, the 2007 NL home run champ, is at first. Joey Votto, runner-up in the NL Rookie of the Year voting last year, will back him up.

Pedroia is my second baseman. He led the AL in hits, runs and doubles and is a terrific defensive second baseman. So is the backup, Jose Lopez, who led AL second sackers in RBIs.

Fantasy lovers, eat your hearts out. My shortstops are Jose Reyes and Hanley Ramirez, potential No. 1 picks in any fantasy draft. Reyes led all shortstops in hits, triples and steals, Ramirez in walks, runs and homers. Apologies to Troy Tulowitzki, another 25er.

I moved Miguel Cabrera to third base because I was a little weak there. Hard to believe he’s only 25. Cabrera already has 175 homers and 650 RBIs. Alex Gordon, expected to have a breakthrough year in Kansas City, is an able backup.

The outfield? Ryan Braun, the ’07 NL Rookie of the Year and a future MVP; Nick Markakis, who’s averaged 100 runs and 100 RBIs the last two years; and Upton, who had a big postseason for the Rays. Ellsbury, the AL stolen base champ, is the backup.

I have 11 pitchers. Hey, you know how it is with young arms. I don’t want to burn anybody out. But it would be tough to top a staff of 25-year-olds that includes: The NL Cy Young winner (Lincecum); the World Series MVP (Cole Hamels); the All-Star Game winner (Scott Kazmir) and the winning pitcher in Game Seven of the ALCS (Garza).

You can also do a lot worse than Chad Billingsley and Edinson Volquez, who were in the top five in the NL in wins and strikeouts. Or Jon Lester and Francisco Liriano, two young lefties with Cy Young potential. Or Fausto Carmona and Zack Greinke.

With all those starters, I can get by with one reliever. Joakim Soria might be the most underrated closer in the game. He had 42 saves last year and his ERA and WHIP were better than Francisco Rodriguez’s.

Whew! You think that team might give Japan and Korea a run in the World Baseball Classic?

And think of the guys I had to cut: Ryan Zimmerman, Mike Pelfrey, Hunter Pence, Matt Cain, Howie Kendrick, Tulowitzki.

There’s another promising group coming up behind them. There’s Longoria and the other Upton, Justin, who is only 21. Felix Hernandez is only 22. Delmon Young, Travis Snider, John Danks, Clayton Kershaw, Jay Bruce, Cameron Maybin, Matt Wieters, Tommy Hansonin the next few years, you might be able to put together more collections of glittering 25s.

This is very good news for disaffected baseball fans who have grown weary of the interminable Bonds trial, or despondent over the news that the Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez wasn’t clean, after all.

Baseball lovers want to believe their heroes are clean. The 25-and-under crowd gives them something to embrace. If you suspend your cynicism, you can get behind this group of stars and reduce the steroid generation to a bitter memory.

It’s a kid’s game, after all. Maybe what baseball needed was a bunch of kids to come along and save it.