Pretty interesting at first blush.
Player’s association comes off pretty bad.
Very well put together. Not speculation. Signed checks. A letter from Paul Lo Duca on Dodger’s Stadium letterhead.
This is a bomb.
Link to the PDF:
Appendix B is great.
It’s Mitchell’s letter to the players asking them to come forward, and saying that they will remain anonymous in his report.
Then, the MLBPA letter to the players basically saying, “you have to tell us that you’re talking to him, and what you say will affect other players, and we’ll rat you out.”
Appendix D is all the cancelled checks and money orders made out to the Met’s Clubhouse dude. He plays a huge role in this, but a well investigated, and well-documented role.
People were concerned that this was all just going to hinge on the testimony of some clubhouse dude. And, that might be true, but it’s goooood testimony.
Interesting review of the media and the timeline of steroids use.
If anyone finds the 400+ page count to be too daunting, I recommend pages 137 - 229, which detail Kirk Radomski (the aforementioned Mets Clubhouse Dude) and how his influence spiderwebbed throughout the league. Fascinating stuff.
I also wonder how many other Radomski-types are/were out there who weren’t a part of this investigation.
eta: last line
I had a little laugh when I saw the note from Lo Duca.
Appendix D is really interesting.
I’m not going to read it in order but I’ll eventually get through everything.
Good point about other Radomskis.
It is kind of Daunting.
Some of the quotes about Orza (MLBPA chief operating officer) make him sound like a real stonewaller. There’s a lot to digest in the report. . .how to proceed, the history of allegations, going back to fans jeering at Canseco in 1988, other busts that people have probably forgotten about, precedence for drug suspensions (going back to the Kansas City Cocaine thing in the 1980s).
Lot’s of good stuff. Mainly skimmed at this point, but the good stuff will come out.
I talked about the report a little bit in the other thread, and how I don’t think naming names will prove awfully effective. I hadn’t seen this thread yet.
On a lighter note, I had to crack up when I noticed Jason Grimsley’s flowery checks.
pat
Yeah, the ‘node’ aspect of this is creepily fascinating. A Bonds gets in touch with Greg Anderson, and soon Anderson is supplying drugs to a bunch of other Giants players and to others in Oakland. Clemens starts using, then goes to New York and a bunch of other Yankees end up doing it. If the teams start deciding “hey, these steroid users are a bad influence and not worth it”- they were well aware of some of them - then maybe that will curb the use of these drugs somewhat.
A little round of applause for Adam Piatt, by the way.
There was this bit about Jay Gibbons,
I love some of the checks, and some of their handwriting looks like a third grader wrote the check out.
Note to self. Pay for drugs with cash.
I didn’t notice that one. The Red Sox seemed sure that Gagne was on steroids, for example, and for some reason they traded for him anyway.
Deadspin has juicy excerpts posted, including the ass shots delivered to Roger Clemens - who, happily, appears to have jumped on the 'roid bandwagon when he left the Sox for the Blue Jays.
It’s also funny to see Canseco cited in the Mitchell Report!
I think what you’re referring to is the part where Clemens said he couldn’t inject himself. That sounded kind of funny.
Along those lines, I found the part where the Dodgers’ officials were discussing Lo Duca interesting.
It seems like the Dodgers knew what was going on.
It really is upsetting to me that Clemens seems to have gotten his start with steroids here in Toronto when he was staying in the same hotel with Canseco.
Posted in other thread by pricciar, so I’m reponding here since it seems more appropriate
Well I think It is an ever increasing level of jurisdiction, and authority that will eventually lead to some real smiting, I mean accountability. Canseco’s book was about a 1 on the scale of credibility and a 0 on the scale of real teeth. But this is an offical report by people staking their good proffession reputations on it, with good evidence. at least a 8 credibility if only a 3 in teeth. But I am still hoping that this provides the impetus for “society” to push for the DEA to go full throttle and crack a whole bunch more heads. That is where the teeth are, and maybe the game can be cleaned up.
Even though Mitchell wants everybody to focus on the future and correcting the problem, I’m still going to post some of the big names:
(These are the ones highlighted in a Yahoo report on it.)
Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Miguel Tejada, Eric Gagne, Andy Pettitte, Paul Lo Duca, Gary Sheffield, Jason Giambi, Troy Glaus, Gary Matthews Jr., Jose Guillen, Brian Roberts, Rick Ankiel,
Former players:
Rafael Palmeiro, Kevin Brown, Benito Santiago, Lenny Dykstra, Chuck Knoblauch, David Justice, Mo Vaughn
Shame 
First off, I’m glad I was misinformed about Pujols. I recognize this doesn’t mean he was clean, but seeing as he was teammates with Big Mac for a few seasons, I suspected he would make an appearance.
Those cheques were eerie for me. Especially when you see a name like Maurice Mo Vaughn (I’m a Sox fan…).
I’m also a Jays fan (live in TO) and I had to laugh when Gregg Zaun showed up. You were juicing and you STILL can’t throw anybody out? The least you could do was turn into Pudge, jeez.
I’m disappointed about Gagne, but not surprised.
I think it would be a good thing if the DEA went full throttle and helped in cleaning up baseball. But, I don’t see how naming names in this report would help facilitate that.
Couple of comments heard on ESPN:
Regarding Brian Roberts:
That’s the extent of the accusation on Roberts. That’s incredibly thin stuff. He seems to be getting defended by a lot of media folks and is one of the lightning rods highlighting the flaws in the report. I happen to agree that I find it hard to be too critical of him based on just that.
Also, regarding the checks paid to New York Mets clubhouse attendant Kirk Radomski, it needs to be mentioned that a clubhouse attendant is the primary go-fer for these guys and almost certainly is buying any multitude of items for these guys. 99% of which are perfectly legal and a player giving him a check could be for just about anything. If Radomski specifically remembers it being for steroids, that’s one thing, but if he can’t recall what it was for you have to give the benefit of the doubt there.
You may be able to nit pick here and there, but I think this thing is a monster.
20 years from now when someone mentioned “The Mitchell Report”, people will remember it like they remember “The Warren Commission.”
I don’t care if individual teams, players, etc get their comeuppance. I don’t really care that Clemens and Bonds late 30’s heroics will forever be tainted. What this thing shows is that steroids were everywhere in baseball, players knew it, trainers knew it, management knew it. It went in and out of the clubhouse.
This should help clean up baseball. I bet that its scary for the NFL, too.