The Chris Moeller Archives

The roar that moused

One Christmas when I was a kid, my parents received as a gag gift a roll of toilet paper decorated with the words "Merry Christmas." I thought about that gift again on Thursday after George Mitchell released his long-awaited report on steroids in baseball.

Here are some other random thoughts on the topic...

-- The most popular phrase or headline used by the media on Friday to encapsulate the results of Mitchell's "independent" report was "collective failure," but Mitchell references 86 players by name in his report, and after skimming through all 311 pages online, I came across the name of only one club owner, Giants' managing partner Peter Magowan, who was mentioned in passing in reference to the BALCO investigation. Mitchell was quoted on Thursday as saying that "everyone involved in baseball over the past two decades-- commissioners, club officials, the players association and players-- shares responsibility for the steroids era," but "club officials" must refer only to middle managers like GMs and field bosses.

-- The choice to publicly slime the players individually was nothing more than payback for the union's refusal to cooperate with this so-called "independent" investigation-- an investigation ordered by Bud Selig, an employee of the club owners, and conducted by Mitchell, a director and consultant for the Boston Red Sox.

-- With only a handful of exceptions, the list of players in Mitchell's report could be very accurately retitled, or subtitled, "A Who's Who of Baseball's 60 Day Disabled List 1995-Present"

-- In the appendix of the report, Mitchell discloses that he's a consultant for the ownership group of the Red Sox, headed principally by John Henry and Tom Werner, but he uses the term "director" with quote marks surrounding it. On no official Red Sox team literature that I've ever encountered, from media guides to the club's website, do the quote marks appear. No major Red Sox players were named in the report. Nearly one-third of the 2000 World Championship New York Yankees roster was implicated.

-- In the body of the report, during which Mitchell suggests some solutions for the so-called steroids problem, the former Senator references his personal role in brokering a peace accord some years ago in Northern Ireland. This should rightfully add fuel to the accusations that this report is a careerist move on Mitchell's part, who's long been rumored to be a candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court and even to be the next commissioner. This personal ambition is nothing new in baseball circles. The league's so-called "independent" investigator in the Pete Rose matter in 1989, John Dowd, has subsequently done everything in his power to keep his name in the headlines also, and to lead a one-man crusade in opposition to Rose's league reinstatement-- to such a degree, actually, that Major League Baseball was forced to file a complaint against Dowd in 1999 with the District of Columbia bar association to keep him from continuing to speak publicly on the matter.

-- The National Baseball Hall of Fame, RIP, 1939-1986. It was fun while it lasted. There won't be much of a museum left though 50 years from now when Kirby Puckett is still the Hall's youngest member. They'll all be players from the pre-Canseco era. By 2057, they'll probably be resorting to the inductions of Cookie Lavagetto and Cookie Rojas. That would be cool if they went in together.

-- Of course the previous scenario will never play out, which was the real, unreported story from Thursday's press conference in relationship to Hall of Fame balloting. Roger Clemens has to be allowed in the Hall on the basis of his on-the-field merit, and the predominantly East Coast voting contingent won't be able to disguise their hypocrisy any longer once the name of the most accomplished Red Sox and Yankees player of his generation reaches the ballot. Once Clemens is in then, you have to let 'em all in-- Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, Palmeiro, all of 'em.

-- The members of the sports media and their pitchforks aside, I sincerely believe baseball fans don't give two shits about this report. They can't be surprised by any of it, and they're already keeping the turnstiles spinning. The fans, I think, have had it with the rumored associations, the hearsay, and steroid chatter in general. What little concern a few have is bound to be washed away by the reality and unstated conclusion of this report, which is that these performace-enhancing substances have been overwhelmingly used in a rehabilitative capacity. A long list of names and the detailed information in the report is bound to bring about, I think, the long-awaited steroid fatigue that even the media must finally be feeling.

Baseball players should still refuse to cooperate with any investigation at any level in regards to what should be a matter strictly of their personal privacy, but they should do what Pete Seeger did before he was charged for contempt of Congress by the House Un-American Activities committee in 1957. Instead of pleading the Fifth Amendment, and the right against self-incrimination, they should plead the First Amendment, and the right of personal liberty. By all rights, they could plead the First for the right of free association, as well. Ballplayers consort with wife-beaters, pill-poppers, adulterers, and racists, many of them already enshrined in the Hall of Fame from earlier generations, seated in the owners' luxury boxes, or both. As a matter of fact, a fella whose only crime is rubbing cream on his arms and legs might almost feel out of place in that company.

posted by CM @ 12:13 PM