Mitchell Report released: "Steroid use 'Widespread' in MLB"

Senator George Mitchell released his report on the results of his 20-month long investigation into the use of Steroids in Major League Baseball. The 409-page report paints a very bleak picture, stating that that Steroids use in Baseball is widespread, affects every single team and taints players at all positions.

No one was spared, including team presidents, owners, general managers, coaches, managers and trainers among those who *knew* this was taking place and did nothing to bring attention to it.

Mitchell states that he requested interviews with 'almost 500 players' and that of those, only 68 responded to his request.  Among the list of current and former players named in the report are:

• Barry Bonds
• Roger Clemens
• Andy Petite
• Jason Giambi
• Gary Sheffield
• Eric Gagne
• Paul Loduca
• Miguel Tejada
• Mark McGwire
• Sammy Sosa
• Rafael Palmeiro
• Troy Glaus
• Jeremy Giambi
• Gary Matthews Jr.
• Mo Vaughn
• Jose Canseco
• Mike Stanton
• Fernando Vina
• Kevin Brown
• Matt Herges
• Jose Guillen
• Frank Thomas
• John Rocker
• Ismael Valdez

This list I got from just a cursory perusal of the PDF version of the report that I downloaded from the http://www.sportszone.com website.

This is a hugantic, ginormous mess that MLB has on it hands, one that the sport has not seen since the 88-year old, so-called "Chicago Blacksox" scandal of 1919. It's going to take years for the sport to recover from this public relations black eye, if it ever does.

As far as I am concerned, MLB should, tomorrow morning, just wipe the slate clean and consider the past 15 to 20 years as part of the "Steroids Era" in the history of the sport.  Going forward, they should issue a ONE TIME ONLY PARDON to all current and former players who were a part of this era and just move forward.

Players who played during this era and accumulated Hall-Of-Fame worthy numbers should be judged solely on what they did ON THE FIELD (since it is almost impossible to know for sure who was cheating and who wasn't, i.e. if batters hit a lot of homeruns, they were almost certainly facing pitchers that were benefiting from stronger legs and arms as a result of the use of steroids).

In other words, Let Bonds McGwire, Sosa, Palmeiro, Thomas, Griffey, Clemens, Petite and everyone else IN to the Hall if their stats are Hall worthy.  Put this shameful period behind us once and for all and let's have a fresh start.

HOWEVER, going forward, in order to slowly re-gain the trust of the public, MLB should issue an edict that states the following:

• "...Beginning with the 1st pitch of the 2008 Major League Baseball Season, any player testing positive for ANY banned substance is subject to IMMEDIATE EXPULSION from the game and is also subject to having their career statistical record EXPUNGED from the recorded annals of the game, as if they had never exsisted...'

Anything short of this sort of RADICAL, 100%, "Zero-Tolerance" policy and MLB will never remove the cloud of suspicion that is currenty hanging over it's collective body.

A sad, sad day in the history of Baseball.  Too bad.

Comments

[Elliott]

I completely agree with you on the zero tolerance policy. I found your article searching for data and opinions on this steroid issue, so thanks for writing about it.