Dough! Mitchell whiffed

There's a pretty good chance that a Major League Baseball player was taking HGH at the very moment George Mitchell was speaking Thursday.

And an even better chance he was laughing, too, about how much money he's going to make next year because of it.

Three news conferences regarding the Mitchell Report were conducted and digested Thursday, and the mountainous baseball landscape hasn't made a molehill of change.

Outside of the fight that's about to unfold between the commissioner and the players association, and that the labor peace we've known for a few years is probably over, we learned virtually nothing Thursday that the baseball world didn't already know or suspect.

For example, there isn't anyone with two eyes who didn't already have Roger Clemens, Eric Gagne and Kevin Brown in the team picture with old favorites like Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, Jose Canseco and Rafael Palmeiro, to name just a few of dozens.

But for the most part, all we can do is to continue to suspect, because in the case of Clemens and Andy Pettitte, the sexiest names in the report Thursday, it is less than convincing.

The two main witnesses in this investigation, without whom there would be no Mitchell Report, were forced by the feds to meet with Mitchell because both are facing prosecution and sentencing, so who knows what they might say to save themselves.

The injustice

There was nothing worse than the inclusion of Brian Roberts, who's got to be on the phone with his lawyers right now deciding whom he's going to sue first.

Roberts, a second baseman the Cubs are currently interested in, was named in the report, based on this:

Larry Bigbie, an admitted steroids user, said that in 2004, Roberts admitted to Bigbie that Roberts injected himself once or twice with steroids in 2003.

That's it. Bigbie said so.

The report in many of these cases says the player declined to meet with Mitchell, but an agent told me a few weeks ago that Mitchell's people wouldn't disclose the charge or the evidence before a player went in, so players refused without knowing first of what they were accused.

Then, there were many like Matt Franco, a former Cubs infielder named because ex-Mets clubhouse attendant Kirk Radomski -- one of the two aforementioned witnesses facing prison time -- said he sold Franco steroids on one occasion in 2000.

Franco actually agreed to an interview with Mitchell and denied ever buying or using any enhancing substance, and denied that he ever met or even heard of Radomski before the publicity surrounding Radomski's guilty plea.

Franco cooperated with Mitchell, and despite the lack of evidence, his name is in the report.

On the other hand, there are some cases in which there is new information and evidence. For example, with Gagne there's an air bill receipt of a package sent from Radomski, which is damning indeed.

But a lot of the statements included are not corroborated, and dozens of players have had their lives and reputations altered forever.

The Great Race

I know an ex-player who was asked specific questions about Sammy Sosa, and while the player had his suspicions about Sosa's steroid use -- again, as anyone with two eyes would -- he wasn't going to be listed as the guy who named Sosa without any proof.

But from reading the Mitchell document, it sounds as though Sosa's name would have been in the report had this ex-teammate fingered him.

Whether you like Sosa or not, whether you suspect him or not, does that sound fair?

On the other hand, without an examination of Sosa and Mark McGwire, how can there even be a discussion of baseball's drug-infested era?

There's no mention of McGwire -- outside of andro references -- or Sosa.

Are we to suddenly forget their 1998 Home Run Derby that Bud Selig said saved baseball and humankind, and was responsible for the economic resurgence of the game?

How in the name of Babe Ruth and Willie Mays can you have a steroid investigation of the last 20 years without focusing on the poster boys who kicked off the entire debate?

Mitchell can't be blamed when players aren't -- for the most part -- going to rat each other out, so it was going to be hard to get to those two.

But without McGwire and Sosa, who can take credit for the explosion of size among players, it's a pointless exercise.

The conclusions

The only way that George Mitchell could have made a difference with his report was to admit what the commissioner and the owners have failed to admit since they began trying to rid the game of drugs.

Mitchell needed to say this: We knew but we didn't try to stop it because there was too much money at stake.

That's the truth. That's the way to start this in a new direction.

You have to give Selig credit for even opening this door, and Mitchell high marks for trying, but there was little chance they would discover much without the two government witnesses.

What they really needed to do was admit no one did anything because everyone was too busy cashing in on it.

Since being unanimously elected permanent commissioner in July 1998, Selig has earned, by some accounts, as much as $45 million, which doesn't include the sale of his Milwaukee team and his compensation as acting commissioner from 1992-98 when he helped whack Fay Vincent.

But Selig is hardly alone.

Owners across the game have cleaned up, as have team presidents, general managers, executives, and, of course, the players.

The players association and its leaders have made a killing, as have agents and business managers.

Everyone had their hand out, everyone cashed, and hardly anyone wanted to see it end.

Players who did it without drugs suffered, and children have died from the effects of steroid abuse.

Even George Mitchell said Thursday that MLB should look in the mirror and see what they've done to kids who saw players as their heroes, and saw an easy way to the big leagues.

Never mind what it's done to the numbers and the history of the game, or that honest players who did it right, like Andre Dawson, have seen their careers swallowed up by the astronomical numbers of the last decade.

Never mind that careers of honest players were cut short by those who took shortcuts.

It was all about the money and only the money. Selig and the other owners knew and they turned the other way.

Scalper's delight

Fans loved it and didn't care. Chicks dug the longball, and attendance records were set year after year.

They set one last year, and they'll set one next year.

Not one fewer ticket will be sold in Milwaukee because Eric Gagne's name is in that report, and not one fewer ticket will be sold in New York because Andy Pettitte's name is included, too.

They will get standing ovations on Opening Day.

It would have meant something to history if Mitchell had called it what it was, an extraordinary, money-making operation that couldn't be derailed because no one had the courage to slam on the brakes.

Sure, baseball will blame clubhouse guys and trainers, or pitching coaches and GMs, but none of them had any power to change a thing.

The rules were what they were, and if you wanted to compete, you closed your eyes and pretended Sammy Sosa was just lifting extra hard in the winters when he came to spring training with an extra 30 pounds of muscle.

Nope, it was the owners who could have done something, and they chose to let it ride.

Players feeling left behind joined the 'roid rage, and they hit the jackpot, too.

If George Mitchell had said all that, we'd have enormous respect today for both Mitchell and Selig for confessing.

And while players boss Don Fehr admitted Thursday that they all waited too long to do something, we saw more of Selig pretending it was all news to him.

He said now "it's a call to action,'' and he intends to act quickly on the Mitchell recommendations.

Never mind that all of Mitchell's suggestions for testing were around years ago, long before Selig was admonished before Congress, something he'll get a chance to experience again.

Mitchell and Selig both tried to portray the unveiling Thursday as closure, as the end of the performance-enhancing era.

That is so absurd as to defy logic and reason. It's about 10 years too late for that.

No, all that happened Thursday was some players were embarrassed.

Today, it's back to baseball business as usual.