Random thoughts on the Mitchell Report
My thoughts on the report, as I skim through it. If you want to follow along, you can download the entire thing here:
- It took a whole eight pages (SR-8) before we got to the first cry of “won’t someone please think of the CHILDREN!”
- $20 million and they couldn’t tack one page at the beginning that just lists all the names? Lame.
- Holy crap, did Mitchell just compare MLB’s steroid problem to Northern Ireland? (SR-34)
- This has got to be the most expensive term paper ever produced.
- p. 22 – “In 1988, androstenedione became the subject of national attention after a reporter observed a container of the supplement in the locker of Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals during his pursuit of the single-season home run record.” Pretty sure that was 1998. Again, $20 million and they couldn’t have someone proofread this thing?
- Very dry reading, but it starts to pick up a bit around p. 86 with the discussion of actual incidents of people getting caught.
- p. 101 – That Player X is one shady dude.
- As much as many football or hockey players are stereotyped as big, dumb jocks, I have to say that the players named in this report are a special breed of dumbass. Between having steroids delivered right to their hotel room (p. 109) or sneaking them into locker rooms like a kid hiding porn under his mattress (p. 110), it’s a miracle these chuckleheads could even operate a syringe.
- I can understand the instinct of a player who gets caught using steroids/supplements to cover it up, but I find the whole “I took pills but didn’t know what they were” defense to be extremely insulting (p. 120). Are we honestly expected to believe that someone who makes a living mostly through their body would just ingest random pills without at least asking what they do?
- p. 151 – They have canceled checks! That’s quality stuff right there. Good move David Segui, using checks with your own name and signature.
- p. 167 – Roger Clemens juicing? Big shock there.
- An awful lot of mediocre players wasted an awful lot of money on roids.
- p. 208 – Paul Lo Duca is a moronic giant among stupid men. Also, the Dodgers look really bad in all this.
- p. 210 – I produced better letterhead on my Commodore 64 than the Dodgers Stadium one.
- All the checks are in the D Appendix. Of note is the extremely girly handwriting of Chris Donnels on D-3. Yes, he actually dotted an ‘i’ with a circle.
- p. D-8 – Poor Jerry Hairston had a stroke in the middle of writing his check.
- p. D-13 -A handwriting analyst would probably have a field day with Denny Neagle. You have the block-printed name and the needlessly stylized “d”s.
- p. D-15 – I dig the wacky Comic Sans-esque font on Adam Piatt’s checks.
OK that’s about it. Overall this was a lot less exciting than I expected. Most of it seemed to be restatements of information that was already public knowledge, and then are there dozens of pages of Mitchell bloviating on the state of baseball and how steroids are bad. Thanks for the insight, Senator.
Thom
It’s a shame, I almost started to like baseball again. But between A-Rod feeling like making less than $30 million for playing a kid’s game for a year is insulting and commentators giving Pettite a pass because he cried about how it was just to recover from injuries NOT TO GAIN A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE… GAH!
I just can’t stand it. I’m about to hang up my interest in sports completely at this point. Why do we waste so much money on these morons – personal checks?!?! You’ve got to be kidding me…