My Take on the Mitchell Report

From reading various different opinions on former Senator George Mitchell's investigation into Major League Baseball from professional sports writers, it appears the opinions are wide ranging. Some think that it is a good things, others not. I tend to side on the not.

Reasons being that this gentleman had no legal authority to do what he did. In my mind, this report is not official by any means and the players named were not given the appropriate forum to rebut the claims of the individuals that were named as sources in the report. The sources themselves more than likely have their own agenda ranging from a personal issue with whomever they claimed did what they did to getting their five minutes of fame by being named in the report itself.

Because there is no legal standing for the report, Major League Baseball should take no action against the named players. For this to happen, the Commissioner of the league Bud Selig and the Players Union would need to come to some sort of agreement on how to formally handle this issue which from all accounts are far from being agreed upon.

If I am one of the players that was named in this report, I would pay it no mind and go on with life as usual. The only problem with this is that the general public has already made their decision about these players and court of public opinion has general deemed them guilty without a fair trial. The last time I checked, you were innocent until PROVEN guilty.

Now guys like Roger Clemans for example have had their impressive careers put into question. How would you like it if you entire body of work where you are employed was put into question by the rantings of a jealous employee? You probably would be upset, hurt and wonder why that this person would do this. Furthermore, Mr. Mitchell only interviewed (without subpoena power) a small sampling of a much larger group. Again, a misguided truth of what really is the issue.

One good thing that I think that will come out of this is that it will force the hand of not just Major League Baseball, but sports in general that there needs to be policy but in place that is official. Hockey, Olympic athletes, NFL and so on all need to have a universal testing system in place that looks for this issue. I understand that drugs will be always two steps ahead of the testing methods to find them but that gap needs to be closed. It is not far that some are using these drugs to get an edge and that records are falling by guys that are not playing fair. I was one to vote that Barry Bonds record be officially stricken from the record. In hindsight I was wrong because Bonds has not bee officially found guilty of anything. Until that happens, his record should stand.

Mr. Mitchell, although well intentioned, was uncalled for what he did and he is on a witch hunt. There needs to be something formally done about this issue as my guess is that there are far more than just the individuals listed on this report that used performance enhancing drugs either past of present. But do it right and not by taking the word of trainers or others that more than likely have a hidden agenda before destroying somebody's good name before you have the facts. This needs to be addressed in a formal manner, not and informal one.