Dark day for baseball

Well, the other shoe has dropped.

The Mitchell report into substance abuse in professional baseball was released last week, and it names more than 70 current or former major leaguers allegedly linked to the possession and use of steroids and other drugs.

The report blamed major league baseball for not taking a sterner stand on the subject when it had the chance; really, would it have made any difference?

Virtually all the players named in Sen. George Mitchell’s report refused to speak to him, which leaves the allegations almost impossible to prove - unless the players in question choose to admit their guilt (not likely to happen, especially in the case of the higher-profile names on the list, including some with Hall of Fame plaques hanging in the balance).

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig is left with some difficult and potentially embarrassing decisions, personally and for the game as a whole. Does he lower the boom on these players, allowing the sins of many to be borne by a few? Mitchell suggested his findings might be just the tip of the iceberg. Or, does Selig do nothing, sweep the entire mess under the carpet and hope baseball fans, as they have so many times before, simply forgive and forget?

Even though he has shown a reluctance to take action on any controversial issue, one might argue, this time, Selig has to do something. The time is long past when anything he does is likely to make any real difference in terms of the public perception of the game.

Many are comparing the Mitchell report to the Black Sox Scandal, in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox conspired with gamblers to fix the outcome of the 1919 World Series. To me, this is much worse. The Black Sox scandal was an isolated incident (though, like the current allegations, it was symptomatic of a larger problem) that ended up affecting only the eight players, suspended from major league baseball for life. If Mitchell’s research is to be fully believed, the use of performance-enhancing substances in baseball today is far more than just an isolated occurrence.

One might question the need to “name names” in a report as incomplete as this, but to withhold evidence of wrongdoing is a disservice to those players who are truly clean. While we can be as cynical as we like, there are clean players out there.

Many people are looking for Selig to fine, suspend or otherwise sanction the named players. To me, that would constitute overkill for a group of individuals who, if they had any loyalty to the game, wouldn’t have gotten involved with steroids in the first place. These players, even if they are guilty, don’t deserve any further punishment. They have surely been judged guilty already in the court of public opinion.

Look at the poor showing by Mark McGwire, not even mentioned in the Mitchell report (but who has nonetheless been linked to steroid rumours for years), in his first appearance on the Hall of Fame ballot last year.

There’s always the problem of deciding whether it would actually do any good to fine people who are already worth millions.

We fans can choose to forgive and forget, but we need to ask ourselves: is the problem of steroids something else we’ll just have to live with if we continue to support the game? As much as we may not like it, the answer might be yes.