Mitchell and Me

First things first on the Mitchell Report. George Mitchell had basically three sources of information, including two individuals, and that alone was good for 88 names. If we ever get the rest of these people to come clean this will quickly appear to be just the tip of the iceberg.

But the other names will have to wait. I basically blame the Players Union in this. They've decided to take an approach that's as uncooperative as possible.

Was talking about it with the Hound last night. He's a big tennis fan. Apparently in tennis if you get caught for using a performance enhancing drug, you're kicked off the tour for 2 years.

In baseball you get 50 games. That's nearly a third of a season. It sounds like a lot but it's really just a slap on the wrist. Hell, Guillermo Mota could still sink our season in his 112 games.

If the Players Union were serious about getting steroids out of the game, they'd make strike 1 for a positive test something like a two-season ban. That might actually have a deterrent effect. But for whatever reason, they don't want to clean up the game. It's stunningly tone deaf, really.

Looking at the names on the Mitchell Report, some of these guys I don't really care about (hello, Larry Bigbie), but others provoke more of a personal response. In alphabetical order...

Rick Ankiel

More than anything else, I just feel bad for Ankiel. He's a guy who had all the talent in the world who all of a sudden, one day, he became completely incapable of doing something he'd always been able to do before. It'd be like if I woke up tomorrow completely incapable of blogging, and this all came crashing down. Scary stuff.

Mets fans had a front-row seat to Ankiel's undoing. I remember it started out as comical, then after a while it just got kind of sad. Somehow you knew the kid was done.

When he came back as an outfielder it was a feel-good story. When he hit the lights out (this is just occurring to me now, that expression is a reference to "The Natural", isn't it?) after his call-up, I think even Cardinals-hating Mets fans felt good for Ankiel.

Now it's all thrown in to question, and once again Ankiel's story is just kind of sad.

Roger Clemens

Like people in Boston and other Mets fans, I've long hated this fuck. Frankly, to me, Clemens is one of the more obvious juicers around.

Here's the great thing about baseball: people have been playing it for more than a hundred years, and yet certain aspects of it never change. Even the fastest runners get thrown out at first on balls hit to short. Even great hitters only get a base hit a third of the time. Even the greatest pitchers allow two or three runs per 9 innings.

Another constant is that all players decline as they get older. Their bodies are slower to recover from trauma, their reflexes slow a decisive tick. Once this process begins, it only gets worse.

When you look at Clemens' career, you see a guy who was dominant in his 20s and then began to slow down in his mid 30s. It's the same story arc that ballplayers have followed for decades .

Only something happened with Clemens -- he suddenly reversed course and seemingly got better the closer he got to 40. Hell, some of his most dominating seasons came as a 40 year old man.

No one should be surprised that he was on the sauce. To my mind, he was every bit as obvious as Barry Bonds.

Lenny Dykstra

The first player I can remember who showed up one year looking like a cartoon character. Back when no one used to talk about steroids, you heard people talk about Dykstra using steroids.

Todd Hundley

RIP.

Paul Lo Duca

Paulie Thumbs, drug lord.

Todd Pratt

I loved Tank. I think all Mets fans loved Tank. On the one hand I'm a little disappointed, but on the other there's a little part of me that would have been upset if he hadn't used the juice.

Oh well. Maybe next time when a former pizza delivery man becomes a viable major leaguer we'll ask more questions.

* * * * *

The truth of the matter is, we can't really blame any of these guys for using this stuff. Once they were in the game, there was nothing to gain by not using them, especially in the late 1990s when no one was asking any questions.

These guys are paid to compete and succeed. Steroids made them compete better and succeed more often.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not telling you not to boo these guys, nor am I telling you not to call them cheaters. All I'm saying is, don't let any name you see in the Mitchell Report or any name you see subsequently surprise you.

- A.F.O.M.G.