Major League Baseball must react to Mitchell report

Major League Baseball
must react to Mitchell report

“Cheaters never win” was always a hopelessly optimistic saying.

Thanks to a 409-page report compiled by former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell on the use of steroids by professional baseball players, we now have reason to know what has long been suspected — that cheaters have been winning at America’s favorite pastime for years.

Some of those who took steroids now stand to lose, at least as far as their reputations go. But, inevitably, others — those for whom there is no physical evidence or those who are able to challenge the reliability of their accusers, will get away with it.

The biggest danger is that at some point those whose job it is to protect the reputation and integrity of baseball will simply throw up their hands and say, “It was the steroid era, it’s past now, get over it.” Under such a scenario, there would be no differentiation in the record books or at the Hall of Fame between those who got their records the old fashioned way and those who got them from a pill or a needle.

A rogue’s gallery

There are more than enough villains in the story of how steroids came to permeate baseball. Individual players decided to use performance enhancing drugs in the pursuit of prolonging their careers, burnishing their records and fattening the wallets. Some trainers and various hangers-on where happy to oblige. Team owners, individually and collectively, were willing to look the other way because baseball was making a comeback from an ugly labor strike and the excitement that big hitters and fast throwers brought to the game was revitalizing the sport. The owners, through the commissioner, Bud Selig, made some attempts to address the problem, but the players’ union fought tooth and nail. And, there is doubtless some blame to be shared by baseball writers and broadcasters, who had their own suspicions, but weren’t willing to rock the boat.

Congress eventually got into the act, and there is evidence that some players simply lied during House hearings. That’s less likely to happen the second time around, when hearings resume Jan. 15.

A vain hope

Any record holder who is shown to have enhanced his performance through chemistry should be barred from the record books and the Hall of Fame. Unfortunately, that’s unlikely to happen. Arguments will be made that some use was only incidental or happened during a relatively short period in a player’s long career. And, of course, there’s the sticky problem of team records and World Series wins. If a team with a half-dozen known steroid users beat a clean team a decade ago, should all the players lose their World Series rings, or just the cheaters? The answer: none will lose.

It is just those kind of hypotheticals that some will use to argue against any discipline of any steroid user.

But it is important that Major League Baseball resist such arguments, for the sake of the integrity of the game. It is even more important for the sake of the nation’s young players. The theory of better performance through chemistry has trickled down, certainly to the minor leagues and even to the high school level.

If baseball as a sport and we as a nation allow a message to stand that not only do cheaters sometimes win, but that they continue to win even after they’ve been caught cheating, we’re all losers.