Believe or not some people have actually asked for my take on the Mitchell Report, the 409 page evaluation of steroid use in Major League Baseball that was released last Thursday.
I suppose it’s a bit of a shock that I haven’t vented on the subject already. After all, as far back as 2004 I ranted about steroids in the game.
But now? Hey, a freshman who read my piece when it was posted would be set to graduate at the end of this school year, so I’m leaning a bit towards ‘too little too late”.
C’mon - Barry Bonds passed Hank Aaron and THEN MLB comes out with a report labeling him a user? What’s the point? Where was this report in spring?
Part of me thinks MLB should have just shut up, swallowed the steroid era whole, secretly doubled its testing efforts and penalties, and skipped merrily on its way.
To me, the Mitchell Report is one quarter irrelevant, one quarter ill-timed, and in it’s entirety, a damning indictment of an era..
Oh, people moan and groan about it all the same.
The report lacks factual evidence [there’s cancelled checks people], it relies in part on the word of drug dealers [uh, it’s a report on drugs. Who else would supply information, your fourth grade teacher?], it fails to identify users supplied by different sources [sorry Mitchell wasn’t omnipotent], it confirms what we suspected and includes nothing new [you’d prefer he lied to spice it up?].
Whatever. Folks on both extremes, as usual, will find no solace in anything remotely centrist. Mitchell comes off as neither a headhunter or an apologist, and lacking any personal knowledge of the investigation I’d say he did a fine job.
The report condemns the last ten years as a bonafide Steroid Era. Arguably the best hitter (Bonds) and pitcher (Clemens) of the day are outed, as are more than 80 other players. No doubt there were additional guilty parties who escaped unnamed.
Do the number of players involved exonerate Bonds of any shame? Nope. It makes him less of a pariah and more of a face in the crowd, but he still allegedly did it didn’t he? He remains the poster boy.
While Clemens remains one of the best pitchers ever (he makes my all-time starting rotation) you have to think twice about what he accomplished in the last ten years. Not all of it - no more than you can dismiss all of Bonds’ prowess - but there is a shadow over his record.
[In truth, some of the text on Clemens bothered me the most. The steroid party with guys injecting each other in the buttocks . . I’m sorry, exactly how was this ever perceived as ‘normal’ or acceptable, especially in such an overtly macho profession?]
Nor am I surprised that so many marginal players were involved. It only makes sense - the people tempted the most would be those fighting for a paycheck, be they older, injured players or youngsters on the cusp. To me, this makes the use of PED’s among the elite all the more mind-boggling.
Here are my suggestions for dealing with this mess.
One, increase testing and penalties for PED use.
Two, leave all the records and awards alone. You’ll never know everyone that was on the juice, or when. Look at it with regret and move on.
Three, forgive those named in the report and end the hunt for past users. No constructive purpose can be served by a witch hunt, and from now on that’s all the search would become.
The Hall of Fame voters can make up there own mind. I don’t think you can keep an entire generation out of Cooperstown (and I’m a ‘small Hall’ guy) but it might happen. In all honesty I can’t picture a future where baseball fans don’t find Clemens and Bonds in the Hall, although a polite 10 year wait for admission might drive home a point.
I wrote about this four years ago, and I’m writing about it now. I’d be swell if I didn’t have to address it again four years down the road.
Let’s fix this thing and move on.
