I think this is a very concise summary from CNN (breaking news e-mail)

[lesliepear]

-- MLB steroid report: Use widespread, includes biggest stars

I'm not sure what I think about it yet.

Comments

[luscious-purple.livejournal.com]

Current Red Sox were pretty much unscathed except for Eric Gagne, a relief pitcher who really hasn't done much for the Bosox anyway. Past Red Sox mentioned include Mo Vaughn and Roger Clemens (take THAT, Yankees!). Also mentioned: Andy Pettitte, Miguel Tejada, Brian Roberts, and a lot of the usual suspects (Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro, etc.).

[alice-q.livejournal.com]

What I think about it is that it's a witch hunt, pure and simple. Baseball, for years and years, not only looked the other way but actually rewarded players who used artificial substances. And now, retroactively, we're going to call the players cheaters and absolve the holier-than-thou owners? Mitchell, in his press conference (there are advantages to being off work due to snow) was quite clear that the focus now should be on better testing and education going forward and not on investigating every name that's ever been mentioned. But I fear that the public focus is going to be on the names. And, worse, a fake list was circulating on newsgroups and bulletin boards earlier today, easily recognizeable by a typo in one of the player's names. So anyone who's on the fake list but not mentioned in the Mitchell report is likely to be tarred with the same brush.

ETA Not all of the players named were named for steroids. Some were implicated in use of Human Growth Hormone, and there might have been other substances as well. Furthermore, the terms of the report don't differentiate one-time use from chronic use.

[nsingman.livejournal.com]

There's no doubt that much of the high dudgeon has a rather hollow ring. You're absolutely right that baseball looked the other way as fan support returned after its nadir following the '94 strike. However, I don't think that it's simply a witch hunt. While the owners ought not to be absolved, many of those players clearly were cheaters who lied about what they were doing and violated the spirit (if not always the letter) of the rules and the game.

In any event, the ones who took steroids have likely sentenced themselves to some rather profound health problems down the road - and maybe not too far down the road. I also have no problem with players and owners being slammed in the court of public opinion, and I hope what happened to McGwire (rejection in his first Hall of Fame vote) is repeated many times.

[alice-q.livejournal.com]

I also have no problem with players and owners being slammed in the court of public opinion, and I hope what happened to McGwire (rejection in his first Hall of Fame vote) is repeated many times.

Judge the ones who did, sure, if you know for sure that they did, based on their own admissions or clear documentary evidence. But, what about the ones where there's suspicion but no smoking gun. And, for what it's worth, right now there's more compelling evidence against Paul Lo Duca than against Mark McGwire.

[eloren.livejournal.com]

How many $$ were wasted discovering officially what I'm pretty sure 90% of the country figured out aeons ago?

[steve98052.livejournal.com]

There are several considerations that I've thought of while discussing the news.

• Doping was not prohibited by league rules in the past, so it's not fair for baseball to punish players for breaking rules made after the violations happened. (But if they doped after anti-doping rules, they should have their butts nailed to the wall.)

• Doping, while not prohibited by league rules in the past, was still cheating, just not a form of cheating that was explicitly prohibited. Players deserve shaming for it (footnotes in the record books, for example), if not formal punishment.

• Doping has been a violation of prescription drug law for much longer than baseball has cared, so a player could be clean under baseball rules, but still guilty of a crime (unless the stuff was prescribed by a doctor with a loose prescription pad, in which case the legal situation is fuzzier).

• If players violated the law, they might be in violation of a league policy demanding a certain degree of respect for the law. If the league has a rule against felony convictions, for example, a player who doped before the anti-doping rule might be in violation of league rules if he's convicted. (But almost no players have been prosecuted, so that's unlikely.)

• The side-effects are nasty. That in itself is a punishment.