Mitchell Report Fallout: How to Purify Baseball History

A lot of talk has been circling recently about what to do with regard to the records of baseball players suspected or found guilty of using steroids or human growth hormone.

In that spirit, I'm taking a fine-tooth comb to baseball history, purifying it of all its stains.

I do this so that one day, our children and our children's children will look back on a game free of taints or controversial errors in moral judgment.

Together we can cleanse the record books—not just of the Canseco's and the Bonds's, but of all those who've committed transgressions against the game.

Let's start with the easy one: All baseball pre-1947 is done, out, forever erased from the record books.

Like Babe Ruth?

Too damn bad.

Loved "Pride of the Yankees"?

Great—watch it on your own time.

Each and every single man to play until the integration of the game was, on some level, complicit in institutionalized racism and segregation. In fact, we should go ahead and get rid of every single player who played even a single baseball game prior to Jackie Robinson.

Stan Musial is gone.

There, doesn't that feel better?

You know, now that I think about it, everyone who attended a game in that period was also complicit. Anyone over the age of 60 should not be permitted to visit the Hall of Fame.

Now let's move on to the 1950s. I believe that the Korean War was an unlawful, indefensible act of imperialist aggression—so anyone who fought in that particular war voluntarily is out.

Willie Mays fan?

The man was a tool of capitalist hegemony.

Then there's 1960s and 1970s. Anyone who's read Ball Four knows that this period was rife with the abuse of amphetamines, which were unlawful and certainly performance-enhancing. There was no testing then, and really no way to tell for sure who used and who didn't.

So Hank Aaron is gone.

The home run record isn't Aaron's, or Ruth's, or Roger Connor's. Next time David Eckstein hits one, we can name him the all-time King.

Sound good?

The 1980's? Cocaine. Who knows how many of your favorite stars from this period were blasting lines in the dugout. Obviously Tim Raines shouldn't be on the ballot, Paul Molitor is out of the Hall...

And that bring us comfortably up to the Steroid Era.

I think it's fair to suggest that all of baseball has been invalidated up to and through the point at which HGH can be detected in a standard urine test.

It should be noted that the above doesn't even take into account the people whose other transgressions have them doubly banned.

Joe Jackson gambled AND played pre-Jackie Robinson. His corpse should be dug up and desecrated somehow.

We have to move on. Oh my God we have to move on.