The Mitchell Commission Report

[Jim Franklin]

names some very outstanding names including Clemens, Petite and Giambi as well as 50 or more others according to the early reports. What will be the outcome? Speculations?

Already some were suspended for the first games of the upcoming season. Heads will roll and careers will be affected. Passed statistics may be altered or asterisked.

[Scott Hilton]

Yeah, Tejada is on the list too and the Astro's just traded for him last night.

[Ryan Scott]

Yeah, Tejada is on the list too and the Astro's just traded for him last night.

Why do you think they got him for Luke Scott and the Pips?

[Scott Hilton]

actually they gave up two young starting pictures, one being Troy Patton, who is a lefty. He has some potential and is considered a top prospect. Giving up pitching of any kind of hope now a days is giving up a lot, lol

[Gary Swartzlander]

names some very outstanding names including Clemens, Petite and Giambi as well as 50 or more others according to the early reports. What will be the outcome? Speculations?

Already some were suspended for the first games of the upcoming season. Heads will roll and careers will be affected. Passed statistics may be altered or asterisked.

The outcome will probably be felt in new rules, but the impact on players mentioned will be minimal. Very few of those mentioned will be impacted and overall it is such a small percentage of active players that it just won't make much difference.

I do think we'll see who the men are and who the men aren't by who stands up and admits some involvement, but even that will be more in the eye of the beholder as opposed to results gotten from actual evidence. With very few exceptions, the smoking gun just isn't there for any individual player. The impact will have more to do with the game overall than any individual player.

[Joe Hittle]

I do think we'll see who the men are and who the men aren't by who stands up and admits some involvement,....

In this March toward Madness my guess is that there won't be too many "real men" at all as they go whimpering to stand behind the shadow of Donald Fehr.

1994 had sent me away. 1998 got me back, not because of McGwire and Sosa, but because of a young pitcher named Kerry Wood. I've always maintained that, in spite of all the rolled eyes I've received in response.

My guess is that we'll be inundated with even more implausible "explanations" than "Steve Bartman cost us the World Series." "Sleep apnea" is getting close.

Let's start testing ownership/management too, and begin in the Commissioner's office itself. You might not find HGH there, but you'll get a much clearer picture as to why no one seemingly noticed that happening in the locker rooms.

Joe

[Gary Swartzlander]

In this March toward Madness my guess is that there won't be too many "real men" at all as they go whimpering to stand behind the shadow of Donald Fehr.

1994 had sent me away. 1998 got me back, not because of McGwire and Sosa, but because of a young pitcher named Kerry Wood. I've always maintained that, in spite of all the rolled eyes I've received in response.

My guess is that we'll be inundated with even more implausible "explanations" than "Steve Bartman cost us the World Series." "Sleep apnea" is getting close.

Let's start testing ownership/management too, and begin in the Commissioner's office itself. You might not find HGH there, but you'll get a much clearer picture as to why no one seemingly noticed that happening in the locker rooms.

Joe

I will agree with you. The current discussion revolved around players, but the leadership of baseball on both sides of the table certainly have blame in this problem. Management from top to botton certainly looked the other way while this was going on. No question about it.

[Ryan Scott]

There's plenty of blame to go around. This report shows that baseball is at least interested in moving forward. I think ownership would be doing their penance to just let sleeping dogs lie; allow the players to move on without retroactive punishment. However, the players need to step up and take their own responsibility by conforming to the international drug testing standards. Olympic athletes have random drug tests unannounced throughout the year and the first offense is a two year ban from competition.

If both parties step up and take these steps, I think we can move forward. However the current trajectory of baseball for me is quickly moving towards irrelevance unless things change.

[Joe Hittle]

... This report shows that baseball is at least interested in moving forward...

I wish that were true. The game is much more valuable to American culture than these bumblers have taken to heart.

Here's what I see coming out of this:

a) An 18 month panic-fervor of reaction that will occupy ESPN, Fox Sports, and the Sporting News

b) Nothing substantiative will be accomplished during that time, although much hoopty-do will be aired and celebrated

c) A few scapegoats will be hung, but neither Bud Selig nor Donald Fehr will be touched

d) George Mitchell will go right back to the Boston Red Sox and do nothing proactively to deal with that team's involvement in the problem

Here's what I'd rather see:

1) A full-blown Department of Justice investigation with indictments and prosecutions of all participants no matter which "house" gets scorched

2) Bud Selig and Donald Fehr banished from baseball

3) A Federally mandated Baseball Commisionership unimpeded by ownership interests as a condition for continuing baseball's Anti-Trust Exemption

4) An Independently operated Jurisdictional Arm of the Department of Justice that would include at least a 5 member hearing board empowered to desanction any member of any team (whether on-field or office personnel) found to have been actively involved in any form of illicit drug trafficking.

"We didn't know..." is a kindergartener's excuse.

Joe

[Ryan Scott]

We can't go back and conduct witchhunts on these guys. Baseball fans are going to have to see this as another troubling era in the history of the game. If we focus on punishing guys no justice will ever be served. We just have to move on and implement strict policies. The infrastructure to do this is already in place if MLB would just agree to allow the national and international drug testing bodies to be involved.

To me, it's all up to the players union and what response they will have to the whole thing. Let's just say I've got no hope that the sport will survive this in any meaningful way.

[Joe Hittle]

If we try to let baseball fix itself, even with the international testing standards, nothing will get done.

Baseball cannot fix itself, will not fix itself, has no intention of looking at this any more closely than they are compelled to do, and, from what I've seen as both "labor" and "ownership" has appeared before Congress in the last 5-10 years, neither side could be believed if the ball were to be left in their court.

For that matter, the press has hardly been helpful in this either. They've been too interested in gaining website volume, distribution counts, Nielson ratings and other industry benchmarks to even try to deal with a subject that they plainly already knew about.

It's a "good ole boys" club. Always has been, always will be, if left to their own devices.

It's either got to be cleaned up, or shut down, particularly in regard to the government subsidy the "sport" receives because of its privileged Anti-Trust status. WE already ARE paying for this.

To say that baseball should be left alone because they can do this on their own is similar to holding that the Klan is a redemptive religious organization.

I love the game. I've played the game. This is NOT baseball. I'd like to have it back.

Joe

[Ryan Scott]

Well international testing standards call for an independent agency to be in charge. That would at least be a start.

It's just sad that it's only been 12 years since the last strike and neither the players not the owners have figured out that their hold on the fans is tenuous at best.

[Joe Hittle]

... and failed to put the finger on Marion Jones who evidently eluded them for exactly how many years? It wasn't quite like she wasn't prominent in her sport, thus sailing joyfully beneath their radar.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19404801/

And that was BEFORE she openly admitted her involvement and was intended to invoke sympathy for her plight.

If an "amateur athlete" could successfully have the back-ups to pass the international standard, how exactly are we going to believe that mega-million American "good-ole-boys" are going to be any "cleaner"?

It ain't a "witch-hunt" at all anymore, These jerks simply continue to openly thumb their noses, and we're willing to let them for 50.00 per seat and pay the "extra-ticket" fee when when we can't get there in person.

And yet, somehow, WE'RE the ones expecting too much from these poor dedicated souls.

PT Barnum may have been more correct than even he thought.

Joe

[Ryan Scott]

No system is going to be perfect, but nothing is going to be gained by going back to search for cheaters. We just have to move on with the best system we can get.

HGH is pretty darn difficult to detect, so testing for it is troubling at best. So long as there is a lot of money to be made, people will be doing whatever they can to get an advantage.

I just don't see what purpose there is in going back to investigate and punish acts that no one can really prove. It will do more harm than good. The goodwill gestures need to come as we move forward.

[Joe Hittle]

"If we always do what we've always done, we'll always get what we've already got."

If that's what you really want, enjoy to your hearts content. But it won't be baseball.

Nothing will change with the "fix" you suggest. Laissez-faire never has historically shown itself to be a corrective to any negative situation. All that will happen is that more sophisticated ways of cheating, particularly in the drug arena, will advance with the "medical" technology.

That attitude has already been demonstrated blatantly and repeatedly. The "stiff penalties" that Congress insisted upon are already being wantonly ignored by players in this past season. For that matter, Selig didn't want them any more than Fehr did. If he had, he would have already been pushing for them. "We didn't know" continues to be his lame excuse.

You don't see a fix in pro-actively declaring it to be wrong and holding the wrong-doers responsible for what has already been done. I'm trying to understand how that approach is going to change anything in the course of time. Frankly, that's been the response of baseball to the drug problem ever since the late 60's. This mess IS where that response has already brought us.

It simply makes no sense at all to see the problem, rue the fact that it is hurting the game and the fans' appreciation of it, and then emotionally depend on nothing more than a course of action that is already shown to be a failed one in a broader community that is mistakenly attributed success for their own bumbling.

Are there trustworthy people in the game? Of course there are. They're just not the ones pulling the strings of the marionette. They never will be if those who are continue to be entrusted with the game's credibility and integrity.

I'm fairly sure that Selig and Fehr aren't any more than the marionettes. You'll never get the string-pullers' attention if you don't burn their dolls. Banishing them is justified because of the documented Congressional record as it stands right now without any further investigation being needed..

THAT'S where we have to start in this, and then at some point, the independent agencies (but I'll stick with my idea that they not be the ones currently accepted by the "international community") will be taken seriously because there truly will be something to consider by the cheaters. Until then, we're just doing the same old thing.

Trusting someone, anyone, who has already admitted that he had his head stuck in the sand because he didn't want to see what was happening is hardly redemptive.

Joe

[Jeremy D. Scott]

d) George Mitchell will go right back to the Boston Red Sox and do nothing proactively to deal with that team's involvement in the problem

That's quite an allegation, Joe. What do we know about Boston's involvement and Senator Mitchell's blind eye to that involvement?

[Joe Hittle]

Good question.

With the "laissez-faire" plan, we'll never know for sure, now will we?

Which is very much my point in all of this. You've now got an admitted crooked game. It's being run by people who have already admitted to Congress that they've turned a blind eye to a problem that was hardly invisible. The same person who made that admission is the one that named someone in baseball to investigate.

Which may be exactly why Congress won't do anything even close to what it will take to clean this mess up. There are points at which it appears very suggestively that politicos have been involved in baseball's string pulling as heavily as has the media and the advertisors.

Unless you're somehow going to claim that the Red Sox are completely blameless, even George Mitchell is not immune to the stigma that is now quite public. When someone can unequivocally state the the Red Sox are clean, and that can be demonstrated credibly, then, and only then, can the blanket of inclusion can be be lifted. Mitchell's own report suggests that all of baseball has a problem, not just "the other guys."

If Mitchell really wants this to be credible, he's the one who cannot afford to say "my report's done, investigative panel adjourned." It's his own blanket of inclusion he has to deal with.

That's hardly me making a wild accusation.

Joe

[Ryan Scott]

That's exactly why I'm looking to the players to take the lead on this. The owners always revert back to the excuse "our hands out tied because of the player's union." They players need to be proactive about implementing a strong, independent drug testing plan with serious penalties.

I just don't see how digging into past events with little definitive proof is going to help going forward. I've also yet to hear your answer to why it would help to go back and keep bringing this up.

[Joe Hittle]

This is now really funny !!

How many times have you watched Donald Fehr before even a tough reporter, much less testifying before Congress? If you've watched him at all, surely you know why leaving this up to the players in anyway at all is the most laughable "solution" that anyone could bring up.

The way the record is now, an honest player is smeared. Okay, maybe it IS me whose being too idealistic here. Maybe everyone in baseball actually IS guilty.

In that case, the fix is even easier than I thought. If that is the case, simply fire, fine and fillet them all. Everyone, including the vendors in the stands.

We really don't want to go there, do we?

Of course not.

The only way to clear the air for the guys who are clean is to expunge (by legal process) those who aren't. That's the beauty of Selig's ultimate bungling in this. Now all he has to do is blame George Mitchell. George indicted us all.

Why Mitchell ever let hiimself get dragged into this toothless investigation is totally beyond me. We're already hearing, "but we're already doing that" as a response from ownership to many of his 19 resolution processes. In other words, even this has been an orchestrated journey, not into fixing the problem, but in shifting the blame to a scapegoat.

The entire response of baseball to its own now admitted (which is the ONLY surprise to me about any of this) problem continues to play out as a bumbling attempt to "get through" as easily as possible.

And, if I'm hearing your response correctly, you're more than willing to let them get away with it. Good luck :-)

Joe

[Ryan Scott]

I didn't say I had any faith that the players would do anything, in fact I stated that I thought MLB would go down the tubes precisely because the players, the group with all the power, will do nothing.

If we want to ensure the best possible outcome, then yes, the government mandating a strict, independent testing program would be the best solution. Of course that will get caught up in court for the next ten years and the drug makers are always a step ahead of the drug takers.

There will never be justice in sport when it comes to doping. The very fact that Lance Armstrong is still the most popular American athlete around is testament to that.

I say just let it go and let history decide the fates of these players. We have a completely different perspective on the "dead ball" era in baseball now than they did back then. I'd much rather have society of 2060 deciding the fate of these players than the current leadership of the sport.

[Joe Hittle]

"That's exactly why I'm looking to the players to take the lead on this."

"I didn't say I had any faith that the players would do anything..."

Okay, now you've got me really confused.

Let me name just a few historic scenarios as to why even the clean guys won't take it upon themselves to clean up the game:

a) Billy Martin taking a baseball bat to Jim Brewer
b) Juan Marichal taking a baseball bat to Johnny Roseboro
c) Jack Hamilton beaning Tony Conigliaro
d) Pete Rose full body checking Ray Fosse in an All Star game.
e) Dave Kingman high spiking Mick Kelleher
f) Roger Clemens hurling an inadvertent broken bat end toward Mike Piazza

It cannot seriously thought that any element of this can be rightly balanced in any court of opinion by letting the current dirty players run their course. Any/every clean player is now a target by those who they could indict by simply telling facts as they know them to be.

If any element of baseball tanks the sport by your scenario of holding things up in court, then let THAT be the mark by which your grandchildren evaluate this era.

It'll give them a much clearer picture of who really were the bad guys in all of this.

Us too, for that matter.

Joe