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The Mitchell Report Is a Fraud
by David Zirin Ever had someone spit in your face and tell you it's raining? That's how it felt watching former Senator George Mitchell's press conference on steroid use in Major League Baseball.
The former Senate majority leader unleashed his "investigative findings" in the somber, deliberate tones of an exhausted undertaker. Mitchell strained to heap scorn upon baseball owners and the player's union for being "slow to act."
Yet beneath the surface, his report is an ugly, sanctimonious fraud, meant to absolve those at the top and pin blame on a motley crew of retired players, trainers and clubhouse attendants. This is truly the old saw of the magical fishing net that captures minnows but lets the whales swim free.
[Republished at PFP with express Agence Global permission.]
The long-awaited report on steroids in baseball slanders players,
goes easy on owners and never acknowledges its author's conflicts of
interest. The scandal is not just drug-enhanced athletes; the scandal
is the political cover of the baseball powers-that-be.
Sanctioned by commissioner Bud Selig's office, the Mitchell
Report was seen by some as an unprecedented act in sports: a $20
million internal investigation aimed at rooting out "performance
enhancing drugs and human growth hormones" in the game.
The
Mitchell Report certainly gives off a sexy sizzle. It names names:
including MVPs Mo Vaughn, Miguel Tejada and Barry Bonds, and former
all-stars like Eric Gagne and Lenny Dykstra. It also names a man being
called the Moby Dick to Mitchell's Ahab: seven-time Cy Young award
winner Roger Clemens. For some time, people in the game have whispered
about Clemens being on the juice. And for some time, the 45-year-old
Clemens denied all charges, as a compliant media lapped it up. As Yahoo
Sports' Dan Wetzel wrote, "Year after year he peddled the same garbage,
Roger Clemens was so dominant for so long because he simply outworked
everyone. It played to the nation's Puritan roots, made Clemens out to
be this everyman maximizing his skills through singular focus,
dedication and a commitment to drinking carrot juice, or something.
It's all gone now, the legend of Rocket Roger dead on arrival of the
Mitchell Report; one of the greatest pitchers of all time, his seven Cy
Young's and 354 career victories lost to history under a pile of lies
and syringes."
The Mitchell Report confirms not only
suspicions about Clemens but also the existence of an outrageous media
bias and double standard. Seven-time MVP Barry Bonds has been raked
over the conjectural coals for years, but Clemens got a pass. Two
players, both dominant into their 40s, one black and one white, with
two entirely different ways of being treated. It doesn't take Al
Sharpton to do the cultural calculus.
And yet flaying Clemens shouldn't excuse the whitewash. There are three fundamental problems with the Mitchell report:
1.
Mitchell himself. Best known before today for helping negotiate the
peace deal in Northern Ireland, Mitchell has a massive conflict of
interest when it comes to baseball. He is on the boards of both the
Boston Red Sox and, until recently, the Walt Disney Company. Disney
owns ESPN, baseball's number-one broadcast partner. Sportscaster and
Hall of Famer Joe Morgan has spoken out about how in the 1990s, ESPN
execs encouraged him not to state his suspicions about steroid use
on-air. As Morgan said, "I would be broadcasting a game and there would
be players hitting balls in a way that they had no business hitting
them."
2. No testimony from players. The only active players
to speak to Mitchell was New York Yankee Jason Giambi, who spoke under
threat of suspension and Toronto Blue Jay Frank Thomas, who, it was
revealed today stepped forward to provide evidence that disputed
Mitchell's allegations. Mitchell says he invited all the accused to
come clear their names, but other than Giambi and Thomas, no one has
taken him up on this generous offer. Yet if you are an MLB player, why
would you come forward to legitimize a process in which you wouldn't
even have the opportunity to face your accuser? This was a process
where Mitchell was judge, jury and executioner: Gitmo meets Skoal.
Reputations have been ruined -- and the essential "truth" of the report
is still based on hearsay.
3. Same old narrative. Mitchell
paid lip service in his press conference to "slow-acting" owners --
calling it "a collective failure." At one point, Mitchell said, without
explanation, that baseball execs were slow due to "economic motives."
Yet the overarching narrative is that the owners and general managers
were merely ignorant or obtuse, with a complete absence of intent or
malice. The real fault lay with players and independent clubhouse
attendants, like the soon-to-be-famous former Mets clubhouse attendant
Kirk Radomski, who says he secured the juice for players and then named
names. Radomski was described by former Mets GM Steve Phillips as "the
guy who would pick up the towels or pick up a player's girlfriend from
the airport." Kirk Radomski, a regular Pablo Escobar.
Mitchell
went on to say that players have actively and on their own made great
efforts to foil the owners' poorly organized efforts to clean up the
game. This is the same kind of political cover -- as Naomi Klein has
written about so brilliantly -- that the mainstream press gives the
Bush Administration on Iraq. Errors made are ones of people with good
intentions who made terrible choices. Those who suffered from these
choices are blamed for their barbarism and self-interest. When Baghdad
was being looted and destroyed, Iraqis were pilloried for their greed.
Rumsfeld, Bush and Cheney were blamed for being overly optimistic and
trusting them too much.
Poppycock, whether we're talking
about the Bush cabal or MLB owners. Performance-enhancing drugs were
funneled into the game along with smaller stadiums, harder bats and
incredible shrinking strike zones to boost power numbers and ratings
after the 1994 strike. (Read Howard Bryant's excellent Juicing the Game
for the full breakdown.)
The idea that owners and GMs
facilitated these measures while leaving the very conditioning of
players to themselves simply strains belief: this is like George H.W.
Bush saying he was "out of the loop" on Iran-contra. This is Dubya
saying that he never read the National Intelligence Estimate before
claiming World War III is on the horizon with Iran. In other words,
this is the way people in power stay in power during times of crisis:
take some heat, blame the underlings, cry some tears and call it a day.
Dave
Zirin is the author "What's My Name, Fool?" Sports and Resistance in
the United States (Haymarket Books). Forthcoming books include The
Muhammad Ali Handbook (MQ Publications) and Welcome to the Terrordome:
The Pain, Politics, and Promise of Sports (Haymarket Books).
Agence
Global is the exclusive syndication agency for The Nation, Le Monde
diplomatique, as well as expert commentary by Richard Bulliet, Mark
Hertsgaard, Rami G. Khouri, Peter Kwong,Tom Porteous, Patrick Seale and
Immanuel Wallerstein.
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Released: 17 December 2007
Word Count: 1,032
Rights & Permissions Contact: Agence Global, 1.336.686.9002, rights@agenceglobal.com
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Writings 
Ever had someone spit in your face and tell you it's raining? That's how it felt watching former Senator George Mitchell's press conference on steroid use in Major League Baseball. 
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