The Mitchell Report

There's not really much room for debate about the top story in Major League Baseball today. Senator Mitchell has released his much ballyhooed report on the scale and effect of steroids in baseball, and perhaps the biggest surprise is how very mundane it seems. True to his word, the Senator has indeed named names (Barry Bonds used steroids!? You're kidding!), but for anyone who's even passively been following the Fall of the House of Bonds over the last two years, the 'revelation' that both the MLB and the Player's Association are to blame for nurturing the steroid culture could hardly be called a shock. Look, guys, we get it: the mid-90's were tough on the game, and so when Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire all of a sudden started hitting baseballs into North Korean airspace, nobody wanted to point out just how improbable the whole situation was. Sadly, that collective ignorance looks worse and worse as the climate continues to change, and the backpedalling and fingerpointing from all responsible grows more and more absurd. In the report, Senator Mitchell recommends that in lieu of punishment, the league should adopt recommendations to prevent performance-enhancing drug abuse from continuing into the future, and move on. This, of course, would be an actual solution, and will therefore not happen. Instead, we'll have saber-rattling and punishments handed down from those who should be owning their own responsibility in the whole matter.