Rocket Fuel

Here's the thing about the Mitchell report: It's awful.

The recommendation made at the end of the report is that no one should be punished and that baseball needs to improve testing and move forward. Look at that again. Mitchell recommends that no one be punished.

Which begs the question: why did he NAME people?

Looking past the fact that Mitchell was working with limited resources, yet had the vaguest burden of proof, he called out individual players for no reason other than to point a finger and say "everyone should hate them."

If no punishments are going to be passed down, then why name anyone? You'd have the same effect by simply stating that steriod and HGH use is widespread and testing needs to be improved. There you go. If no conviction and no sentence is going to come down, then why supply the supposed evidence on that scale?

Truly, the Mitchell report makes the initial Kennedy investigation look professional.

But that's not say that it wasn't illuminating.

Every day, another player steps forward and admits to taking HGH, as accused in the Mitchell report. While it's ultimately unnecessary support for the report as a whole, it's convincing support for the report in specifics.

In other words, every person that steps forward drives another nail into Roger Clemens' coffin.

And, hey, I helped build that box a long time ago. The man is a jackass. They replayed that moment from the 2000 World Series the other day on ESPN and you can actually see Clemens yell at Mike Piazza "I thought it was the ball." No, really, that's what he says. He mistook half of the bat for the ball. That makes sense. Because, you know, not only do they look similar, but he would throw the ball at Piazza in that situation.

I find it funny that people were surprised to see his name in the report. Was it his unquestionable integrity that gave people pause? The man has less integrity than Dick Cheney. In many ways, Clemens is the epitome of what's gone wrong with the game -- and he was, even before his name was linked to HGH. Now's he's the perfect symbol of everything that's gone wrong.

I don't care if they ever prove conclusively that Clemens cheated. I don't care if he denies it until he dies. But if this means I won't be subjected to six months of "Clemens Watch" next year, the Mitchell report will, in my book, become the greatest document ever produced.


Now, an addendum to the last blog.

Jayson Stark on ESPN.com mentions a number of things in his last column. This is one of them:

True, the Tigers will run a lineup out there in which seven of the nine everyday players have made at least one All-Star team since 2005. But they also have a roster full of players with injury histories. So after dealing away seven of their best prospects this winter, they need to stay healthy, because they're short of reinforcements they can call up. "They've pretty much decimated their depth," one AL executive said. "So this is their window."

It's like he read my blog! Granted, I was referring specifically to the Detroit rotation, but it applies to their line-up as well. Because, you know, no one ever lands on the DL these days...

Next: Can the Tribe win the Central without making a big trade?