The Mitchell Report Reveals Most Players are Alright
12.26.07 Chris Stevenson - As many of you have heard, the steroid investigation results in Major League Baseball has just been released to the public and a few unexpected names have come up, but not nearly enough to make me lose my faith or love for the game. I have to admit, I didn’t see the Roger Clemons allegation coming-and understand these are still not legally conclusive-I just lumped his longevity as being the same as Satchel Paige and Nolan Ryan. Sad but true, news of the “Rocket’s” steroid use will not be the countermeasure it should be that takes some heated attention away from that of the hated Barry Bonds. Expect the outrage toward Clemons to be conspicuous by its silence. This is not to be confused with the original George Mitchell Report; something about some violence between the Israelis and Palestinians back in 2000 (yawn), no this is heavy-duty stuff right here.
The 40-page summary reveals to me that contrary to the opinion of many, the number of users has been very low: “In 2002, former National League MVP Ken Caminiti estimated that ‘at least half’ of major league players were using anabolic steroids.” Others had a higher percentage while some estimated the drug use at around 30%. “However it is a fact that between 5-7% of the major league players who participated in anonymous survey testing in 2003 tested positive for performance enhancing substances.” Baseball’s biggest issue isn’t performance enhancing drugs, its primary concern should be the dwindling number of black players on the rosters of its 2 leagues.
It’s been revealed that the decline runs concurrent with the low numbers of black fathers in the black community; indeed baseball is a proven father & son’s game. During this period came the rise of the single working mother & hanging-out buddies game; basketball. With the NBA looking to European whites from war-torn countries as the new hard-bitten ghetto warriors, as well as Asian stars, even the black grip on b-ball is no longer a lock. The key point here is that mom’s boys don’t bring as much to the NBA table as dad’s boys did with the MLB. Yes they are highly skilled but they lack the character and grounding that made black baseball players an asset off the field as well as on. A few black Mother’s boys are choosing football as well, but football sells itself. This is an ongoing oddity with me because baseball is more individualistic than basketball and football, when a player is on the batters mound or pitcher’s mound he is all by himself and has a chance to show self to the world. He doesn’t have to pass the ball to anyone unless he is playing the base or field. Society, television talk and reality shows and urban culture are teaching black boys and girls to be selfish and this carries over very glaringly in basketball, football and baseball.
Steroids began as a white athletes’ issue, in spite of the bloated amount of Bonds references in the actual report (103 times out of 409 pages), more black players could mean less usage. It was on 3/30/06 that MLB Commissioner Bud Selig asked George J. Mitchell-a former Senate Majority Leader- to investigate how many of his players were juicing. With 7% now, the glass is 93% full.