MLB's Mitchell Report

Originally Posted 12/14/07

An excerpt from an email chain I was a part of for the last two days... here are my comments after hearing the thoughts of many and reading various articles over the internet.

I've been scanning through most of the emails on this chain and I've seen a lot of great points on what is probably the biggest impact story in sports this year. I have to admit as a huge baseball fan that I feel a lot of different emotions as a result of the all this. On one hand, no one was naive to think this day wasn't coming and I still think a lot of players escaped without having their names on public display... I mean you're telling me no Greg Vaughn, Kevin Mitchell or Brady Anderson's of the world did roids? I'm guessing a lot of players got off since the report really only included three sources (Balco, the internet sales and Radmonski). The truth is I'm guessing 80% of ballplayers have at least tried steroids or some form of illegal drug enhancing substances but we can't turn our back and say this player doesn't belong in the hall or this player doesn't deserve to get a new contract, etc... etc... what's done is done!

This report serves three purposes in my eyes and I'm for one glad it came out. 1. it provides a little closure to a topic no one fully wants to embrace because we want to believe that sports is pure and the talent we've all witnessed was real without any help from drugs but that's not realistic. 2. It is exactly what Selig said, it provides help to a sport that needs to do a better job of stepping up and using this as a call to action. 3. Lastly, I think the light of this report will help steroid use go down in all sports, not just baseball... it'll help young high school and college athletes stay clean and not use harmful substances and the sport will get back to being pure. Sure, we'll still have some steroid use and it'll be a constant struggle to stay above the substances that can't be traced by urine tests but the sport world will hopefully get cleaner.

I still think Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens belong in the hall of fame. They're incredible players and worthy of the hall whether they took roids or not... just as Adam Riggs and Stephen Randolph don't belong in the hall. To me, these players were able to stay around the game longer then they should have which is a shame because we might have missed out on witnessing a few other ballplayers develop from the minors and make solid careers for themselves but the truth is they probably took roids too... these stars also prolonged their career and made extra millions but heck, the owners were paying them so screw it. It balanced out. They're all to blame, the owners, MLB League office, the Players Union, the dealers... everyone!

The real problem I have with all this are the records that went down as a result of everything... we can't get those back. But I also don't think we should have asterisks by them. It is what is, it helped make the sports world into the big business it is today but the records will remain and so will their achievements in Cooperstown. But we'll always remember this era as the "Roid Era" and it'll live with these stars forever. Just like we have the Black Sox scandal, Pete Rose and other tidbits throughout history. It'll hopefully serve as an educational period for youth today.

Now what I really want to know is who didn't ever take roids??? Who are the players from this era that we should all stand up and cheer for? Here is my short list of assumptions;

Cal Ripken Jr.
Ozzie Smith
Kirby Puckett
Ken Griffey Jr.
Greg Maddux
Tom Glavine
Tony Gwynn
Ichiro Suzuki
Chase Utley
Jeff Kent
Derek Jeter
Johan Santana
Wade Boggs
and of course some Dodgers, Kirk Gibson, Brett Butler and Orel Hersisher
Who knows????? Maybe no one???

I do know one thing, I look forward to seeing the sport move on and clean itself once and for all.