A Most Disappointing Day

When I signed on to the AIM today, Bushido greeted me with "MITCHELL REPORT DAY!" And what snark loving, thoughtless baseball fan couldn't love the idea of the Mitchell Report? Here the game's top stars and moneymakers were going to join national villain Barry Bonds as targets for fat rich people who were angry they were bad at sports. We thought it would be some combination of Christmas and Hannukah, "chrismanukah" or even "Mitchmaskah". And with a super-serious SportsCenter special report going all damn day, the potential for humor was enormous.

So what did you get? A bunch of god damn role players and Miggy Tejada. After all the build up, I actually feel bad for most of the people named. Matt Franco? Larry Bigbie? Phil Hiatt? Who the fuck is Phil Hiatt?

If there's a silver lining, it comes in the public shaming of one Roger Clemens. Much to every Met fan's delight, Roger Clemens got nailed pretty hard in his steroid use. Evidence in the report stretches back to his days as a Blue Jay, which covers 11 seasons, three 20-win seasons, and four Cy Youngs. Much like Barry Bonds, it was the case of a former great who wanted to continue his dominance as opposed to fading away gently. The irony being that when Dan Duquette proclaimed Clemens to be "in the twilight of his career", he posted a 139 ERA+.

So what have we learned today? Pretty much nothing, which after a 20 month investigation doesn't bode well for baseball. Or maybe it does. For every "think of the children" gnashing of teeth, there's someone who just flat doesn't care and another person who takes the view that steroid use should be open and legal. So really, we're right back where we started.