Roid Rage
The day is here: the Mitchell Report is out. According to senator Mitchell, one quarter of baseball players illegally used steroids or human growth hormone, not the least of whom is Roger Clemens. Granted, it should have been pretty clear that anybody who still throws 100 mph at 45 is probably the recipient of some form of outside assistance, but Clemens’ name was still the report’s major shocker.
I agree with Jeff Passan about the oddity of the steroid situation: "Baseball owes its current boom to the fervor caused by Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa – neither of whom was named in the report, by the way – and yet with every new development, it wants to separate itself, to disown the time." That’s the irony of the anti-steroid fervor, after all; baseball was dying until McGwire and Sosa reinvigorated it in 1998. McGwire has been linked to steroid use (odd that the Mitchell report doesn’t mention that), and Sosa has long been suspected (though no evidence exists). If either or both of those men actually used steroids… where does that leave us?
Maybe that’s why the Mitchell Report doesn’t mention either of them. It’s one thing to hate on Bonds and Clemens, but stay away from the guys who built the foundation business is running on.
