Mitchell report pre-thoughts
Posted by Michael.
With the results of Sen. George Mitchell’s investigation into steroids-in-baseball set to be made public in a little less than an hour (2 pm Eastern), what better to do than speculate without factual basis? (On that subject, check out this great column from ESPN’s ombudsman, Leanne Schreiber.)
First of all, I have to confess that I’m pretty curious, in a train-wreck/Lindsay Lohan/Brittany Spears/Rich Ankiel sort of way. Who is guilty? Who is the biggest surprise? Who, in hindsight, makes sense?
And that’s where I start to get irritated, because if that was the end of the story, if the Mitchell report consisted of a set of tablets from Heaven, with a full and complete list of every player who absolutely used steroids (and if you weren’t named on the list, you were completely innocent), then great.
However, I’m afraid that this is going to more like a Michael Moore film: mostly correct on the big stuff, and on the right track, but the opposition will focus on process errors and “producer bias” such that the credibility of the entire message is seriously damaged. For example, it’s bad to say, but there really needs to be a decent-caliber Red Sox player on the list or else everyone will accuse Mitchell of favortism (he’s in the ownership group of the Sox). More seriously, some interviewees are saying that they felt pressured to ”guess” about a player’s steroid use - who knows if that’s a legit concern or if they’re just covering their butt after squealing on a teammate/client.
In the end, I blame Bud Selig. Maybe that’s too easy to do, and he’s a popular whipping boy, but the fact is that had MLB actually wanted to find out what happened, they would have supported the Mitchell investigation and given Mitchell the support he needed to actually get people to testify. Instead they help him at arm’s length. The result is perhaps what MLB brass wanted; confusion and uncertainty instead of clear demonstration of guilt. This is, of course, not good for baseball, but that hasn’t stopped them in the past, so why start now?
December 13th, 2007 at 1:35 pm Using
I also wonder if Vegas has a line on Sox-players-named-in-the-Mitchell-report.
I hope to God that Big Papi’s not on there.
The more likely profile is a B-/C+ player, a veteran/journeyman desperate for a comeback or rehabbing an injury, trying for one more multi-year contract - I’m thinking of the Jason Grimsley profile. Everybody thinks of sluggers as the steroid guys, but I think that pitchers, and not even big power pitchers, could benefit immensely from a low- to medium-dosage steroid regimen; keep your arm strong, keep your trunk strong, and speed up the recovery time. This is where HGH comes in too, and I think in a way that MLB’s fixation on steroids only masks the HGH problem. I mean, in 1997-98 when I was in Santa Cruz, several of my coworkers offered me the stuff - but not as a way to get big, but to trim down and lose body fat. And it was cheap, too. So if it’s that prevalent in a non-MLB town, 10 years ago, you bet your butt that it’s popular with the pros, and even more popular in the minor leagues where the reward-risk payoff is higher.
December 13th, 2007 at 2:41 pm Using
Okay, looking through the report, I found this interesting bit on Eric Gagne (p.219):
December 13th, 2007 at 2:42 pm Using
Nomah? When he was having troubles?
Might explain the injury-ness as well…
December 13th, 2007 at 2:52 pm Using
You can download the report here.
Nomar does fit the bill, except he didn’t get healthy again. I don’t see anything in the report on him, fortunately.
Players with Sox connections: Mo Vaughn, Roger Clemens, Manny Alexander, Jeremy Giambi, Mike Lansing, Kent Merker, Mike Stanton, Eric Gagne, Brandon Donnelly.
Players with Rockies connections: Denny Neagle, Matt Herges, Larry Bigbie, Greg Zaun, Ron Villone, Mike Lansing.
Players with Phillies connections: Lenny Dykstra, Jason Grimsley, Ryan Franklin, Todd Pratt, Gary Bennett Jr, David Bell.
December 13th, 2007 at 8:37 pm Using
Yeah, I found the report about two hours later - didn’t realize it was already out when I posted.
I gotta say, no big surprises on anyone listed. The connection to Gagne explains a lot about his poor performance with the Sox and lack of consistency overall.
Makes me wonder if that’s going to be a weird redemptive scapegoat for some of these guys who are still active… You know, something like: “Hey man, even though I kind of suck now, you know I’ll be clean, and so I’ll at least be consistently mediocre, rather than giving you spurts of uncommonly good play spaced apart by series of injuries and major sucktitude in between.” You know what I say to that? Yeah, that’s right, I hear they’re hiring in Davenport.
Weirdest thing I noticed: in the write-up on Rocket, there’s mention of one of the coach/trainer types advising Clemens to avoid one of the more powerful steroids before then turning the stuff over to Jose Canseco, who the coach/trainer-person considered to be more of an expert on ‘roids.
My brain’s response to this mind-numbing information: WTF?!?!!!???!!!111!!eleventy!!!!cheezburger!!!
December 15th, 2007 at 1:32 am Using
One more thing: I had it in the back of my mind that Randy Johnson’s name might come up among all this, but it looks like that’s not the case.
I guess his real struggles in performance came after the McGwire-doesn’t-cooperate-with-Congress scandal, so maybe he got wise and avoided the juice, in spite of his problems…
Whatever: Bud Selig is still a boneheaded loser. Is it too late to make Paul Newman baseball commissioner?
December 15th, 2007 at 2:25 pm Using
It’s possible that the Big Unit is juiced, but given his body type and injury history I would think that he wouldn’t want to use ‘roids, and instead HGH would be super-helpful at keeping his joints working decently.
The important thing here to remember is that the Mitchell report is by no means exhaustive; a lack of mention in it merely means that you got lucky and didn’t your supplier didn’t get caught by the Feds. It is for this reason that Mitchell urged Selig not to discipline those players named, since there are probably just as many (if not significantly more) players who are just as dirty, who didn’t get caught.
And, while in the end the MLBPA (player’s association/union) is most a fault for resisting any kind of testing, here is where Selig deserves blame: if Selig had given Mitchell some kind of authority to compel players to testify before the Mitchell committee, then Mitchell wouldn’t have had to base all of his report off the Fed’s info, and we would actually have a much better idea of what was going on.