The Mitchell Report

I had an absolutely epic post drafted about the Mitchell Report and Clemens' testimony on Capitol Hill from earlier this week. Really, this thing was like 6000 words. And I realized that nobody besides Zhi would read it. And I realized that I haven't paid nearly enough attention to this steroids stuff to have 6000 words worth of correct, interesting, well-informed info. So, long story short, I got to a point where I had too much to really want to skim through it and re-draft it because it mostly wasn't good. Right.

But the main idea is that baseball really screwed this one up. They ignored the issue because they had a good product that erased the memories of the 1994 lockout. Fans were happy, owners were seeing revenues skyrocket, and Red Sox fans stopped complaining. But when the elephant in the room (which is only slightly larger than Bonds' steroid-inflamed skull) became such that even people like my mother, who doesn't know Barry Bonds from Micheal Jordan, could look at these players and comment on how unnaturally large they'd become. (Side note: my mother, like every Pittsburgher, was a die-hard Pirate fan until after the 1992 season when the Bucs traded Bonds to the Giants for a handful of beans and embarked on their decade-and-a-half "rebuilding" project that has no end in sight).

But in the process of trying to rehabilitate the game Bud Selig invoked the almighty power [ineptitude] of our congress whose independent study has led to a media circus on Capitol Hill. And once this all has been resolved, we might see Clemens or Bonds end up in jail but that's it. That's the upper-ceiling. As we speak, guys are at spring training taking needles in their asses to try to keep up. And it's entirely worth it to them because if they get caught, they still have their money. And If they don't, then their numbers skyrocket and they make more money. The Mitchell Report gave us heads to put on our mantle to point to and say, "Yeah, these guys are cheaters," while nothing actually changes.

As a fan of sports and the entertainment they bring me, I like my games to be entertaining. And 105 mph fastballs, curveballs that drop 18 inches off the plate, and 525 foot home runs entertain the shit out of me. But as someone who plays sports as well I can't imagine the frustration I'd feel if I was a clean athlete on the cusp of the pros only to see my spot gobbled up by a 'roid-raging fraud. I think baseball has an obligation to integrity and the safety of its players, and steroids compromises both. At this point I don't know what busting prior steroid users does to help anything. I want to see some reform from this point, and that means Bud Selig and Donald Fehr getting real about investing in the future of testing for HGH and whatever else chemists are concocting to skirt the existing battery of tests. Without this, Major League Baseball will become no better than the WWE.