Finally!!!

Mitchell just spilled the beans. His overall conclusions 1.)baseball was ineffective in policing itself, 2.)steroid and hgh use is rampant, 3.) there is now an effective policy for dealing with performance enhancing substances in baseball. Forget all of this, all the fans care about was who was using. The sluggers are the obvious names with the likes of McGwire, Bonds, Gonzales, Sosa and Pudge. Their physiques gave them away. But most revealing confirmations are the pitchers. Most notably Roger(i'm getting better with every passing year) Clemens. Petite is also named and i suspect our very own Woody and Prior were using.

Clemens, the good old white boy, who gets a pass while Bonds gets the full brunt of the U.S. Justice dept. Their careers have had a very similar trajectory. We can't put Clemens on one pedastal and Bonds on another. At age 34 Clemens career took off again after declining the previous 3 years. It was 1997 and roids were fueling baseballs comeback. Brady Anderson was somehow hitting 51 hrs and it was the home run derby every night at every stadium. Clemens pitched 264 innings that year with an astounding 2.05 ERA and was 21-7 with his first year in Toronto. This began an eight year tear for Clemens that coincidentally started to fade with the stricter testing. The Blue Jays of the late 90's also had Conseco on it. Now it is reported that Macnamee injected Clemens over several years with Sustanon, Deca-Durabolin, and Winstrol. These are old school steroids, many of which Arnold introduced to the U.S. in 1967. The user gains strength, endurance, and an incredible ability to recover. The bottom line with Clemens is that like Bonds, he was incredibly gifted and the juice made him God like. Unlike Randy Johnson who broke down as he got older, Clemens only got better because the gear got better and we endlessly had to hear from Bristol how incredible he was.

The Commission is really insisting on a deemphasization on the names involved and wants the public to focus on the problem. Lets be serious, without the names, there would be no interest. The problem was/is so widespread, they can't punish anyone because they would have to punish almost everyone. For the people who insist that its all heresey they are in either endless denial or have something too valuable to lose.

In the end, the cheating doesn't really matter, records should be kept, because every era has its cheaters. Whether its greenies, gambling, the Black Sox, raising the mound or doctoring the equipment, baseball will continue because of the beauty of the game. The irony of the entire press conference was the Commission refusing entry to Jose Conseco-the one they should really be thanking.