The Shame of Baseball's Mitchell Report

Everyone that follows baseball—and even most people that don't—have heard about the Mitchell Report. 

This report was the result of an 18 month investigation into allegations of the abuse of performance enhancing drugs by the players of Major League Baseball, led by former Senator George Mitchell.

The 409-page report lists some 78 former and current major league players as users of performance enhancing drugs.  The report is also total garbage.

Mitchell and his "investigators" had no subpoena power, no way to force people to talk to them.  Instead, they relied on gossip and innuendo from people who might have had ulterior motives for providing information.  There is very little evidence other than flat-out hearsay.

Don't get me wrong, I am sure that steroids were rampant in major league baseball throughout the 80s, 90s, and on into this decade.  A lot of the allegations in the Mitchell Report may even be true.  But very little, if any, of the "evidence" the Mitchell "investigation" uncovered could ever be used in a court of law.

But it's in the court of public opinion that Bud Selig and George Mitchell wanted to make their mark.  Why else would they try so hard to get at least one player associated with every team in the league into the report?

From the very beginning, this report was about nothing more than politics and manipulating public opinion.  Bud Selig hired a politician to come up with a report so he can tell the public, "We've come clean."

But the report singled out 1.5% of the 5148 players that appeared in a box score over the era investigated as steroid users.  Even worse, it singled them out on the flimsiest of evidence.  These players are therefore already convicted in the court of public opinion, from which there is no appeal.

Roger Clemons is right to want to sue for slander.

And what's baseball supposed to do with the "evil" players called out in this report anyway?  Suspend them?  A lot of them aren't even playing aymore.  Kick them out of baseball forever, like Pete Rose?  How much sense does that make?  Are you supposed to base decisions on who to banish from the game on gossip and innuendo?

After the mud-slinging, Mitchell makes his reccommendations, which are as bad or worse.  First and foremost is the suggestion that Baseball set up a "Department of Investigations" to look into all real and imagined allegations of performance enhancment drug abuse in the league.

What kind of Star Chamber would this be?  This is a recipe for disaster, as is the suggestion of an anonymous hotline to report cheaters.  Say you are a relief pitcher that's just been burned by a hitter that rocked you for a game-winning, three-run homer in the 11th inning last night.  Do you get revenge this morning by calling the steroid-abuse hotline?

This is America, and last I looked it wasn't a police state.  Baseball should not be in the business of investigating its players.  Investigations are the business of the civil police.  Civil police departments answer to elected officials.  Who does a Major League Baseball "Department of Investigations" answer to?

Background checks are one thing, but full-blown investigations by a mysterious department answerable only to the Commissioner of Baseball are another thing entirely.

Yes, buying, posessing, and using performance enhancing drugs is illegal by US law, but Major League Baseball has no obligation, no mandate, no ability or even the right to enforce US Criminal Law.  It's only obligation is to protect the integrity of the game.

And the only thing baseball can legally or morally do is test its players.  Tests should be administered rigorously and routinely.  Every player should be tested twice a month during the season, and once a month in the offseason.  No exceptions.  And the tests should be held to the same standards as the testing done during the Olympics.

Only after an objective positive test should a player be punished by baseball.  And the punishments should be severe.  A ten-game suspension and mandatory drug awareness counseling for a the first offense, an eighty-game suspension for a second offense, a full-season suspension for a third offense, and a lifetime ban for a fourth offense.

Only then can Major League Baseball truly restore the integrity of the game.  And they won't have to resort to funding stupid things like the Mitchell Report that destroy the reputations of select players based on gossip and innuendo. 

That Selig commissioned this mud-slinging, slanderous report to prove in the court of public opinion that baseball was doing something, anything—that is the real shame.