My preliminary response after a fair skim of the Mitchell Report, is that the report is a joke. There is no real hard evidence supporting many of the claims of steroid use. Many of the accounts state, this could have happened, there was speculation, I don't remember... How credible is Kirk Radomski? The guy is only cooperating under a plea agreement to lessen his sentence for steroid distribution, money laundering and tax evasion. The U.S. Attorney's office wouldn't have been interested in his cooperation for him to turn in the Manny Alexanders and the F.P. Santangelos of the world, they wanted big fish and whats to say Radomski is not fabricating his accounts of steroid use by players such as Clemens, Pettite and Tejada to save himself. Absent any concrete evidence; test results, order forms, personal admissions how can anyone put any faith in this report. Radomski supplied numerous cashed checks from players, but as a "clubby" it is not unusual or out of the ordinary for "clubbies" to make purchases for players that would need to be repaid, and players often tip "clubbies" either monthly or at the end of the season. Even more distressing then the fact that Senator Mitchell is a director in the front office of the Boston Red Sox, but he is an attorney who should be familiar with the standards needed to make these accusations in such a large public forum. Mitchell uses very little factual data to support many of his claims and could hear from the attorney's of many of the players accused and possibly defamed in his work (Although highly unlikely because that would open the players to disclosing personal information.) As stated earlier this report was a waste of time and did nothing to help Major League Baseball rehabilitate and/or help baseball deal with the steroid issue.
