Let the feeding frenzy begin...

The Mitchell Report was released this afternoon, detailing the multi-million dollar investigation into steroids and human growth hormone (HGH) use by Major League Baseball players past and present. The damned PDF file is over 400 pages, and I've gone cross-eyed trying to read it all.

There's sort of an epidemic tracking/Typhoid Mary quality to it. You can literally follow a small handful of individuals from team to team and see the clusters of names spreading out in their wake. I'm sure the sports commentators and blogsphere will have a field day with it, there are some real gems in there.

For example, I especially love that prior to 2006

"...the Major League Baseball joint drug program did not provide for discipline based on 'non-analytic evidence' (that is, evidence of use that is not derived from sources other than a drug test.)"

That one took me a few go-rounds to even figure out what it meant. Nestled amidst the double-negative is simply this: you couldn't punish any player unless he failed a drug test. If he publicly stated he took steroids, or shot up in the middle of the stadium, or was convicted of manufacturing and selling steroids, you couldn't punish him. And since the Players Association generally seemed to hinder whatever pathetic moves the Commissioner's office made, often the drug test (if it ever happened) came so long after any suspicions that it was unlikely to show up anything.

The whole situation underlines the problem with drug abuse in sports, and in baseball particularly. I just hope people recognize that under the United States Constitution, there is a little concept called the presumption of innocence -- you know, people being innocent until proven guilty.