I’ve had a bit of time now to look over news of the Mitchell Report (I haven’t read it yet…pretty sure I won’t get to that any time soon). A few thoughts:
First, I’m glad this thing is finally out. It’s about damn time.
Second, I’m not surprised by any of it. I think we all more or less knew that Roger Clemens was juicing. Andy Pettite is a bit of an eyebrow-raiser, but it’s not that crazy.
As far as the Orioles, we knew Tejada would probably be in there, and the same goes for Larry Bigbie and — unfortunately — Brian Roberts. I couldn’t really care less about the other O’s named. It’s not like I ever really considered guys like Tim Laker and Todd Williams important members of the team.
There is a story here and that is the report itself and the names contained therein. But there is another story that lurks beneath the surface, and that is the issue of steroids themselves and what effect they have had on the game. For every Clemens or Bonds we find there are countless more like Nook Logan and Cody McKay and Ricky Stone.
Clearly the juice had little to no effect on what these guys were able to accomplish.
So if you happen to be one of these “who cares, steroids don’t make you a better ballplayer” types then you, unfortunately, have a leg to stand on here. Most of the big names who juiced were better-than-average performers to begin with. There are going to be people who seize on this to make a “steroids are no big deal argument.” Those people are still wrong, but the issue just got a lot more complex.
All that really matters is what baseball does going forward. If they implement the recommendations and we finally move to a point where the game is as clean as it can reasonably be then, hey, call it a win. The sooner we can close the book on this game of Steroids Gotcha, the better.
So…Erik Bedard to the Reds?