The Steroid Mess

Yesterday, The Mitchell Report came out in baseball and supposedly revealed the depth of which steroids had penetrated the game. On the surface, I hoped as a life long baseball fan that this report would shake baseball back to reality and help reground the game back to it's roots. I was disappointed to say the least. This report did nothing except expose names without any real substantial evidence to back the claims made in it. Most of the claims came from first hand accounts from 2 people. In other words, this was hearsay evidence nothing more. A lot of the players named were far gone out of the game and others have no impact on the game now. What concerned me most was the fact that report specifically asks for no player to be disciplined for their part in the steroid era. My question is then, why do the report in the first place then? If there was never a follow up or meaning to do the report why spend 60 million dollars on it? Because most of the evidence is based on hearsay most of the players know that if they are suspended they will win the appeal because they cannot be convicted by baseless words and no solid evidence. In some cases, players named in the report might not have even done steroids at all. For example, Brian Roberts of the Baltimore Orioles is listed in the report even though his only connection to it is that a former teammate said he heard Brian Roberts say he might have tried steroids 1 or 2 times. Mind you, this player never saw Roberts take them but now Roberts is in the report and the fact is he will be ever tainted by the allegations. How did this report serve to make things better when there is no solution presented in it? The suggestion was that baseball enact more stringent testing. Duh!!!!! People have been clamoring for that for over 4 years now. I believe baseball tried to do what is right but got caught in their own end game. What I mean is that baseball wants to clean up the game from enhancing drugs but those drugs have helped produce record number of attendees to games and players hitting longer home runs, etc....Baseball wants to appear that is trying to do right but also stroking the golden goose and insuring that it continues to lay the golden egg. I am sorry yesterday was a sad day because a report came out that only reiterated what we already knew. Anyone could have told you that. Holla....