I don't care about George Mitchell

I don't care about George Mitchell. I don't care about the Mitchell Report (PDF Download). I don't care about steroids and I don't care who used them and when. I don't care that Andy Pettitte used HGH and I don't care that Brendan Donnelly hasn't slept since the report's release. I don't care.

There really isn't anything I am going to hear that will surprise me when it comes to performance enhancing drugs. I know doping happens. I know it is widespread and I am certain it will continue. There is too much at stake for it not to. The middling player will always try to gain an advantage to get ahead. This is why a LOT of the names linked to doping are guys you probably aren't familiar with unless you follow baseball very closely. They are guys that were clawing and scratching for any advantage they could find to either make the big leagues or stay in the big leagues.

Why?

It is really a very simple equation and can be traced very neatly back to the basic economic principle of supply and demand. Each major league baseball team has 25 major league roster spots and that is all. In order to qualify for one of these roster spots you have to be special. You have to be able to throw the ball faster than 99.9% of the global population or hit a ball harder than 99.9% of the global population or be faster, or throw farther, or be able to strike out a left handed batter in a crucial spot with your crafty veteran guile. You have to be special. Many players who make the major leagues have done very little but play baseball their entire lives. When finally reaching the pinnacle of their life's work it is very possible they will find they cannot cut it at the highest level. Then what happens? Desperation. Desperate people clinging to dreams of greatness or aging greats clinging to their years of glory will take whatever measures they can, legal or otherwise to stay in the game.

In some ways it is sad to see. In some ways it is the inevitable spawn of a business that takes in billions in revenue every year. Money drives behavior in our world and a lot of that behavior isn't good.

I also hate the hypocrisy that is found between baseball and football. Football has always had a "If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'," attitude towards performance enhancers. Baseball is supposed to be above the same kind of behavior? Kind of a silly argument. I don't remember ever seeing Paul Tagliabue or Roger Goodell in front of a congressional subcommittee.

All that was achieved by the Mitchell Report was to catalog something that isn't terribly important and the report truly changes nothing. I was a huge baseball fan before the Mitchell Report, I am a huge baseball fan now, and I will be a huge baseball fan in the future. I believe most baseball fans would say the same.

D. Isaac