The Mitchell Report Starts a Steroid War: Barry Bonds Amid Many Suspected of Use

With the release of the Mitchell report last week by former US Senate Majority Leader, George Mitchell, an interesting conversation has erupted on talk shows around the country. On shows such as Mike and Mike in the Morning on ESPN Radio and the David Stein Show on Sporting News Radio, there has been little sympathy for Barry Bonds, who has already been convicted in the court of public opinion of his steroid abuse. Bonds, the all-time leader in home runs for a career is one of if not the most hated persons in the sport today. On the other hand, in Mitchell's report, Roger Clemens who is arguably the best pitcher in our generation had his name included. Shocking to many, the fact that Clemens had his name mentioned over 82 times in Mitchell's report brought the steroid debate to a screeching halt as baseball fans had to decide if Barry Bonds was guilty then so did the beloved Roger Clemens.

What has occurred in sports bars and taverns around the country has been a protracted conversation on ethics in sports. Not something the game does well, baseball fans had to decide that if they had convicted Bonds even though there is no evidence of his drug use available to the public, then a conviction must be in order for Clemens whose personal trainer testified that he had administered the steroids to Clemens personally. At least on Bonds' case, his personal trainer spent a year in jail and refused to testify to federal prosecutors thereby maintaining the appearance that Bonds has never used performance enhancing drugs. But with Clemens' trainer testifying a problem has occurred.

Is it about race? Is the reason that Bonds was convicted and Clemens has not to the point a matter of race and race alone? Oddly enough, no one knows when it comes to people's perceptions but one thing is certain, the evidence is heavily more weighted to Clemens' abuse than Bonds' after Mitchell's report. Certainly before the report was released, honest evaluators of the game of baseball saw similarities between Bonds and Clemens. How else could it be explained that Clemens' fastball skyrocketed ten miles per hour after the age of 40 or how Bonds was able to go from hitting 45-50 home runs a year to 73 in the year he broke the record for most home runs hit in a single season. Both players are guilty of the same inexplicable truth, they were better after the age of 40 than they were before and that breaks every conceivable human law known to man about longevity and the human anatomy.

Senator George Mitchell was asked by Major League Baseball and its commissioner, Bud Selig to investigate steroids and its use in major league baseball. After twenty months and between $40-60million, the game still does not have a definitive answer. Because players were not forced to testify most of the testimony used by Mitchell was supplied by two people currently being prosecuted for distributing steroids, including the aforementioned Clemens trainer, Brian McNamee. In the Mitchell Report, Clemens is alleged to have been injected with Winstrol while Bonds supposedly used THG.

In the case of Bonds, since 2003 he has been at the center of the BALCO scandal. While he was being prosecuted in the case questions of perjury have been alleged and are the source of his indictment earlier this fall. Bonds was not charged with using steroids but of lying to the federal grand jury that heard the BALCO testimony. The question is whether Bonds admitted to using something called the 'cream' and the 'clear' both street names for the designer steroid, THG. The most obscure aspect of the Bonds' steroid issue is the supposed reasoning behind it which was because he felt overlooked by the home run chase of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa during the summer of 1998.

Mitchell's report, a 409-page snooze of a read, did the one thing Bonds has been unable to do for the last four years, and that is to cease being the singular face of steroid abuse in Major League Baseball. He has a new teammate on that ballclub and Roger Clemens is his name. The only question is who the Hall of Fame will draft first.