Entering the McCarthy era of sports

Pretty sure I wrote something the other day about how those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it. Obviously not an original thought by me. I would have thought that someone as bright as Senator Mitchell would have heard thought before.

The Mitchell Report that came out Thursday is little more than innuendo and gossip. Look, for some of the people named, such as Roger Clemens, there seems to be solid proof. I don't doubt that many of the people in this report are guilty of using performance enhancing drugs. My problem with the report is the seemingly haphazard inclusion of names into the report. The example that seems to be getting thrown around the most is that of Brian Roberts. Here is the evidence against him, directly from the report:

Segui introduced Bigbie and Brian Roberts to Radomski over lunch. Afterward, Segui made a steroid purchase from Radomski from inside Radomski’s car, which, according to Bigbie, was heavily stocked with performance enhancing substances and paraphernalia. Roberts was not present.

and later

Brian Roberts is an infielder who has played for the Baltimore Orioles since 2001.
He has been selected to two All-Star teams. Roberts and Larry Bigbie were both rookies in 2001. According to Bigbie, both he and Roberts lived in Segui’s house in the Baltimore area during the latter part of that season.

When Bigbie and Segui used steroids in the house, Roberts did not participate. According to Bigbie, however, in 2004 Roberts admitted to him that he had injected himself once or twice with steroids in 2003. Until this admission, Bigbie had never suspected Roberts of using steroids. In order to provide Roberts with information about these allegations and to give him an opportunity to respond, I asked him to meet with me; he declined.

Really, is this enough information to completely ruin someone's reputation? Largely, what that all amounted to was, he told me he used it once but I never thought he did or suspected him of it. Huh? Come on now. I need a little bit more than that before I'm ready to tar and feather people.

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One last thing about this whole issue. The only person who really surprised me that they were included was Andy Pettitte. I was a little disappointed, to be honest. Until I read the section about him, where it gave his reasons:

McNamee said that Pettitte called him while Pettitte was rehabilitating his elbow in Tampa, where the Yankees have a facility, and asked again about human growth hormone. Pettitte stated that he wanted to speed his recovery and help his team.

Really, is this supposed to bother me? He used HGH, which is not proven to be harmful, because he wanted to get back to pitching in order to help his team. How is that any different than a cortisone shot? Because of it's legality? Seriously? This sort of use doesn't bother me even a little bit. And from what I've read, this was the most prevalent use. The other most common reason for use was fringe players trying to make it to the pros. I don't blame them even a little bit. Is it cheating if everyone else is doing it? Or is just the rules of the game? If the best players in the game, and Clemens and Bonds are quite possibly the best pitcher and best hitter of at least the last 50 years, were using, how could I possibly blame fringe players who were trying to catch up?

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OK, one last thing, which I've read before, said before, whatever. Why is it that everybody talks about steriods in baseball, and nobody talks about football and the fact that everybody in in football is bigger and faster than ever? Isn't clear that quite a lot of the people who are bigger and faster, in track and field, in baseball, and yes, in precious football, are using steriods, hgh, and anything else they can get their hands on?