Plays about sports don’t have to be just for sports junkies. Add some drama, a little humor, universal themes and off-the-field tension, and you can pull in even the most sports-averse.

Itamar Moses’ “Back Back Back,” now in a world premiere production at The Old Globe, is probably one for the fans. The look at baseball’s steroid-era – roughly 1988 to 2005 – is territory fresh and familiar enough for those with just a passing interest in baseball. But aficionados aside, the play lacks sufficient dramatic tension and thematic universality.

OK, so you don’t have to be a baseball nerd to figure out that Raul is a stand-in for Jose Conseco, who wrote a tell-all account of his own steroid use and that of fellow players. One of the guys he ratted out included homerun record-breaker Mark McGuire, represented here by the character Kent. As for Adam, the third character in this three-hander, a hint at his real-life counterpart is in the title. Conseco, McGuire and Walt Weiss won back to back to back American League Rookie of the Year awards in ’86-’88 (hurray for Google!).

Actors Joaquin Perez-Campbell, Brendan Griffin and Nick Mills play out the brutal but jocular type of relationships you’d expect oversized boys who are both teammates and competitors to have, shop talk one moment and puerile the next. The play follows their characters through career ups and downs, and where their divergent views on steroid use take them.

For Raul, the bad-boy player and proud juicer, it leads to a career plateau and a string of on-field embarrassments. Perez-Campbell gives the role plenty of meathead humor and a twitchy bravado, though he seems more Italian Stallion than Cuban.

Griffin is up to the more difficult task of playing the wavering Kent, whose turmoil over steroid use is ultimately outmatched by its star-making results. Kent winds up defending himself in a Congressional hearing on the subject of steroid use in sports. Well, not defending himself per se, but rather staunchly avoiding the subject: “I'm not here to talk about the past. I'm here to be positive about this subject” (the “subject” presumably being baseball, not steroids). This part – and the quote – is also true to life.

Adam is meant to provide moral ballast to the two heavyweight dopers. In the play’s second inning (you knew the play would be divided into nine scenes, right?), he’s a talented yet insecure rookie who looks up to Kent as a role model, and Mills plays Adam with uneasy newbie charm. But Adam’s absence from much of the play renders his anti-steroids stance, feelings of betrayal and defense of Kent less persuasive.

Lee Savage, who provided the picture perfect boxing ring set for the Globe’s “In This Corner” earlier this year, creates a plain baseball diamond set (with the help of Russell H. Champa’s lighting design) in the temporary arena stage at the San Diego Museum of Art’s Copley Auditorium. Since the scenes tend to take place in locker rooms and managers’ offices, it’s a serviceable set – in the same way motor motel carpeting is practical – if underwhelming. More effective are the digital scoreboards that light up the date and locale at the start of each inning.

Though baseball stats may be returning from their stratospheric heights, the fallout from the steroids scandals continues. The Mitchell Report, released last year, covered the history of illegal substances in baseball and named names. And in March, Barry Bonds goes to trial on charges that he lied about doping in a 2003 grand jury testimony.

For a play that’s about steroids, the word isn’t uttered once. The characters speak in coded conversations and overt euphemisms like “pre-game vitamins” as the play examines the morality of steroid use and, more importantly, the effect such performance-enhancing substances had on the heart and soul of the game. Moses compares the scandals to the World Series fix in 1919 and the baseball strike of 1994.

“Back Back Back” tackles all this history and more, with a foray into the topic of free agency, with language full of insider lingo and statistics. For the uninitiated, a glossary and timeline of events is included in the program. It’s an intriguing peek inside the locker room during a pivotal moment in the so-called American pastime, but it doesn’t quite add up to the stuff of dramatic theater. The talky play could use an injection itself–of action and palpable tension.