The Mitchell Report was released December 13th, 2007. In the report 89 players were named as having taken performance enhancing drugs. Many of the players have since come forward and admitted to their use of the illegal drugs; most with the hilarious “I only did them once” tagline which is not unlike Bill Clinton’s admittance to smoking marijuana but not inhaling. One player (Roger Clemens) is fighting like hell and denying everything. He, of course, is the player on the list with the most at stake.
During the period since the Mitchell Report I have been collecting my thoughts...
I want to start off by saying that the 89 players named is probably a fraction of the overall number of players in the MLB who have used performance enhancing drugs.
Well, what does the report mean?
Absolutely nothing.
The Mitchell report was a lot of work and effort and money spent trying to make people feel outrage, excitement, embarrassment,... something. Maybe people wanted his findings to mean something and to change the way we think about modern sports. Truth is, didn’t we feel differently about modern sports already, without the aid of the Mitchell Report?
Exactly how are we supposed to feel about drugs that make people better at sports? I would say much like we feel about drugs that make people more artistically creative. Are we outraged that the Beatles more than likely used psychedelic drugs to create great rock n’ roll albums or that Jack Kerouac was on every drug under the sun when he wrote On the Road?
It is safe to say that Barry Bonds benefits the most from the Mitchell Report. He is no longer the scapegoat. He is no longer a selfish prick and a despicable cheater. He’s just one of the guys. Okay, he is still those last two things.
I still love baseball. Nothing in the Mitchell Report has changed this since nothing in the report was revolutionary. Baseball is a tainted game, I know this. It always has been to some degree. World Series' have been thrown, players have been involved in gambling, and now players have taken performance enhancing drugs. There will be a next too. The recognition of steroid use does not erode the game. Baseball records have and always will be put into context. Bond’s 73 homers in a season and his career home run record are inflated stats now. A whole era is now inflated just as pitcher’s numbers were inflated in the early days of the game. Cy Young and his gazillion wins anyone?
The Mitchell Report is a story. True fans still love the game. We may not like it’s players much anymore but this does make the players not named in the report more likeable and easier to get behind and root for right?
So, exactly why is the Mitchell Report big news? Because people love hearing bad stories about people that are not them. Sports culture has changed but sports have a way of fixing their own problems. Fans shall soon forget.
When it comes down to it, nothing is changed and baseball is still the shizz.
2 comments:
this is absolute genius. finally, some reasonable analysis of the mitchell report surfaces.
the analogy you made is accurate. on the road is a great book precisely because kerouac was higher than a kite.
and i like the idea of bonds being marginally improved by all of this. i've always disliked clemens more than bonds, so i'm happy about this turn of events.
Thanks.
Did I ever tell you about that time I saw Roger Clemens in a Schlotzsky's Deli in Lexington?
I was really conflicted because on one hand I really despise the guy and then on the other hand he's probably the best pitcher of our era.
In the end, I decided it would be rude to ask the man for an autograph or to approach him so I just sat at my table and polished off my sandwich.
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