Mitchell Report

Now that all the smoke has cleared after the explosion let's examine where we go from here. You had the words of George "I'm on the Red Sox Board" Mitchell telling us he had no cooperation from current players and that we should move forward and not dwell on the names he listed in his "impartial" report. We have Bud "Not my fault" Selig saying this report was needed to start removing ourselves from the steroid era. Fat chance Bud. I definitely enjoyed his dodgy comments about the total cost of the investigation. Something along the lines of it would have cost more to not have this investigation. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. The final contestant in the fall-out press conference sweepstakes was Donald "Remember me from '94" Fehr. His take was supposedly how the Players Union feels. The main thing I got from his statement was that he is upset that players(mainly Clemens) reputations were permanently tainted. Over the past few years nobody who has been implicated has been proven to be wrongly accused. Your name doesn't accidently get tossed into goverment investigations without some questionable behavior. Unfortunately I was not permitted a podium and national media coverage for my $0.02, but here it is. This whole charade has just been a smoke screen for the fans. MLB felt they should flex a little muscle, throw a few sacrificial lambs on the fire and take some partial responsibility. There is no way the Players Union or MLB will allow the testing to be administered by an outside party. That would be letting outsiders in on the dirty laundry. The most interesting number I heard yesterday was 60. That is the MAXIMUM number of random drug tests allowed during Spring Training. 750 players and only 60 tests. Talk about giving cheaters a chance to hide. Other allegations were of Union officials tipping off players before they were to be tested. There's a shocker. My feelings are that no real results will come of this investigation. As a fan I will not use the names on the list as ammo to rip someone the next time I go out to the ballpark. The most disappointing name on the list is Jack Cust. The only reason to watch the A's last year. It just served as a reminder that anything that I believe as real from the past 20 years has probably had an invisible asterisk next to it. The best memory that was stirred up from reading the report yesterday was of Roger Clemens. This past season the Yanks were in town to play a weekend series against the Giants. My buddy and I made it out to the ballpark early and gave it to Roger Clemens during BP. We must've said something right since he turned to us and pointed at his ring finger alerting us to the fact he sold out and earned some championships with NY. When he really should of bent over and pointed to his ass cheek, but I guess I can't blame him for keeping that gesture to himself while in SF.

Final Verdict:

Baseball will be back in 2008 and people will go to the ballpark. Hopefully the players, owners and commissioner will stop with the tough talk and realize that the viewing public is not as stupid as they think. We know it's all been a sham, but the game is too great for these ego maniacs to drag it down.