The Mitchell Report and Baseball's Steroids Report

The Mitchell Report is set to be released today, and there is so much hype and angst leading up to it that it's hard to figure out what exactly is going to be in that bomb shell. This is not going to be a good day for Major League Baseball, and it brings up the legitimate question of how severe the lasting damage will be.

Early indications say we can expect several of the following from the report: 1) That there will be 60-80 names on the Mitchell report of major league players who have used steroids and other growth enhancement drugs 2) That some of these names are of major all-stars: not only those already strongly suspected of drug use, but also some all stars that nobody has even brought up yet 3) There will be a thorough analysis of the current state of doping in Major League Baseball, followed up by strong recommendations of changes that should be made.

The fall out could be huge, or it could be minimal. Most of this depends on two main factors: what well known names pop up that the public wasn't ready for, and how quickly can the players' union and MLB work together to get a strong anti-doping testing system into place. These two aspects are critical to salvage anything positive from this report.

The first part is the most important. There are a lot of names that are expected to be on the list. Seeing Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens, and Andy Pettite isn't going to surprise anyone. Disillusioned fans already assume most of them are guilty, and baseball is already suffering because of it. What baseball needs is a clean superstar. A-Rod is the last "amazing" slugger who is assumed clean. If his name shows up on the list (there is no rumor it is, but 60-80 players is a lot of people) that would be devastating.

Baseball could also rally behind the Boston Red Sox, Detroit Tigers, or Chicago Cubs if they test completely clean, but if there are questions on those teams, everything goes out the window. What happens if 6 Red Sox show up on the list and no Colorado Rockies? Those open up the kind of questions that baseball wants to just go away.

The second half is getting in a quality testing program, and harsher punishments. It's hard to believe the "3 strikes and you're out" levels of punishment proposed by Commissioner Selig will be passed by the players union, but with the country and congress looking on, it's also going to be hard to try to keep standards loose while everyone is scrutinizing every move they make.

This report is going to be damaging. Aside from confirming some suspicions about players, the most damage will be done from the all stars and MVPs on that list who have not been named yet. There is very little faith in major league baseball right now, and that wavering thread isn't going to be reassured by suddenly realizing 10-15 of the fan favorites' "clean" players actually aren't clean after all.

Will this report kill major league baseball? I can't go that far. Baseball when it was much younger survived the Black Sox scandal, it survived Pete Rose's gambling, it survived despite the utter dominance of the Yankees over several decades. It survived the strike, which came as close to anything to killing it. Baseball is wounded badly, but major league baseball will find a way to survive.

But the Mitchell Report will assure that it will be decades before fans can ever have full faith in America's sport ever again.

List of Sources:

"Players Linked to the Government's Performance Enhancing Probes" http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ys-mitchellchart121207&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

Ronald Blum "Sources: Mitchell Report to name MVPs, All-Stars, won't address amphetamines"

Michael Schmidt "Mitchell Report May Name Free Agents, Report Says" http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/09/sports/baseball/09mitchell.html