It’s official — the long awaited report on the use of steroids and other performance enhancing drugs in baseball is out. Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, who was commissioned by Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig to investigate the issue, presented an overview of his 409-page report to a nationally televised audience last week.
It’s fair to say that most everyone interested was eager to hear and read about new groundbreaking information about professional baseball’s latest crisis. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. What was compiled by Mr. Mitchell seems to be an exhaustive account of the same information that has been available on the subject for years.
Yes, there is a substantial amount of evidence presented supporting Mitchell’s findings, but most of that information was going to become public in the near future, anyway. Keep in mind that the bulk of the evidence that was collected during the investigation came from individuals facing legal charges. Those individuals will be faced with offering the same testimony in a court of law and under oath in the near future.
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So why was the report done? What was the motive for spending tens of millions of dollars to rehash old information? Finally, what did the owners, the commissioner and Mitchell hope to accomplish by compiling this report and releasing the names of some while knowing full well there are countless other players who have been involved with the use of performance enhancing drugs?
Quite simply, it was a poorly conceived effort on the part of the above mentioned to wipe the egg off of their collective faces. I say their faces because that’s where the bulk of the problem exists.
I, for one, believe there was a good chance that Bud Selig was fully aware of the widespread use of PEDs (performance enhancing drugs) even before he became commissioner. Let’s not forget that Mr. Selig was the owner of the Milwaukee Brewers before taking the job as commissioner.
Because I haven’t read the Mitchell report in its entirety, I don’t know if Mr. Selig or any other owner was questioned about whether they had any knowledge of the problem on their respective teams. I doubt very seriously, however, that any inquiries like that ever took place. After all, the commissioner is hired and controlled by the owners and they are certainly not going to participate in something that might incriminate them.
Mr. Mitchell did his best to distribute blame in all directions to varying degrees and deservedly so. Unfortunately, the blame game doesn’t address the fact that PEDs have been a part of professional sports for decades and those folks who were signing the checks turned a blind eye toward the problem as long as the turnstiles kept turning profits.
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The real question now is where does baseball go from here. No one is going to change what has happened and there is no tangible proof of who has and who hasn’t used PEDs to enhance or prolong his career. People want an asterisk placed on some records but not others. I say put one big asterisk in front of the era from 1990 to 2005 and let’s move forward.
Personally speaking, I’ve put this issue behind me and could care less about who cheated and who didn’t. I’m also glad that I don’t have to vote on who gets into the Hall of Fame. I’m just an old baseball fan looking forward to next season and the good weather that accompanies the bulk of the baseball season.
Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.L. Tomaino 
Samir LanGusProvided
