December 15, 2007 8:21 AM

Another DUMB@$$ AWARD wiener

DUMB@$$ AWARD wiener #703: George Mitchell

I’m not going to sit here and try to blow sunshine up your @$$. I’m not going to deny that, given the thick, dense cloud of smoke hovering over our national pasttime, baseball has a serious drug problem. I’m certainly not going to dispute the central premise of the Mitchell Report, which, as I understand it, is that Major League Baseball needs to clean up a huge mess that threatens the game’s credibility. (News flash!!)

I haven’t read the Mitchell Report, and I frankly have no plans to. I’ve got better things to do with my time. As I said, I don’t dispute Mitchell’s premise. Major League Baseball certainly does need to get it’s house in order. Too many heads (Et tu, Satan Bud Selig?) have been turned away from the game’s drug problem for far too long. In the case of Major League Baseball, where there’s smoke, there most definitely is a major conflagration. Rome’s burning, and it has been for a long time.

What I do have a problem with is Mitchell’s methodology and his apparently abysmally low standard of proof. By relying in large part on convicted criminals and those who were looking primarily to save their own hide, Mitchell has built a mansion on what appears to be a foundation of sand. For a former prosecutor, you’d think there would be a higher standard of proof and a greater emphasis on finding credible witnesses. Instead, Mitchell spent 20 months putting together a report that appears to have been built largely on the testimony of criminals and others whose credibility is highly questionable. In doing so, he’s thrown 85 current and former players to the wolves, allowing public opinion to feed on the carcasses of their reputations without allowing for a reasonable burden of proof or providing the 85 the opportunity to refute the allegations. Yes, I understand that most players weren’t willing to cooperate with Mitchell, perceiving his efforts to be something of a witch hunt. And who can blame them? Given the atmosphere surrounding Major League Baseball, there were elements of a witch hunt present in Mitchell’s project.

That Mitchell, a former prosecutor, would tarnish the reputation of so many in such a cavalier and sloppy fashion is something I find highly disturbing. All 85 may well be guilty as sin, but Mitchell’s methodology has left both his motives and his methodology open to question.

I may be way off base here, but I can’t help but wonder why, after 20 months of work, George Mitchell couldn’t come up with something that meets a reasonable burden of proof. Yes, I understand that there wasn’t a lot of cooperation directed his way, and understandably so. Nonetheless, to create a report built on the soft sand of the recollections of criminals and men of questionable credibility seems like a hatchet job. After 20 months, Mitchell probably had to come up with something to feed the wolves and demonstrate to those paying his salary that he’d actually been doing something useful.

This is meant in no way as excusing the immoral, unethical, and often illegal behavior that many of these players engaged in to get and maintain the edge the felt they needed to remain competitive. I’m convinced that baseball has a real problem- one that has been blithely ignored for far too long. Still, I’m not convinced that the Mitchell Report can overcome the weakness of it’s methodology and it’s sources. George Mitchell has sullied the reputations of 85 men, many of whom may well be innocent but will now never be seen the way in the opinion of the general public.

Too much time and too much effort has been expended by Mitchell and his staff to produce a product so shoddily constructed and supported. Major League Baseball deserves better, fans deserve better, and the 85 men convicted without benefit of a trial deserve better.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on December 15, 2007 8:21 AM.

Time to summon the Flying Spaghetti Monster was the previous entry in this blog.

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