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Mitchell report could spark move to rid baseball of steroids

Use of performance-enhancing drugs ensnared not just All-Stars like Bonds and Clemens but also fringe players trying to hang on.

By Peter Grier and Christa Case Bryant | Staff writers of The Christian Science Monitor

from the December 14, 2007 edition

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Washington - Former Sen. George Mitchell's report on steroids in baseball may be just the beginning of a new campaign to rid America's pastime of the scourge of performance-enhancing drugs.

Perhaps Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig – who asked Senator Mitchell to take the job – hoped the report would be the end of an era, not the start of one. A study that solely focused on the problems of the past might have allowed MLB officials to declare the problem solved and move on.

But Mitchell's description of a pervasive drug culture in the sport, his listing of star players as drug users, and his push for widespread changes in baseball's testing regime could constitute a tough challenge to the continuation of the sport's status quo.

"The need is for everyone in baseball to work together to devise and implement the strongest [antidrug] strategy," said Mitchell at a press conference Thursday.

Mitchell was tapped to investigate baseball's drug issues in early 2006, after the book "Game of Shadows" was published, alleging that Barry Bonds and other players used performance-enhancing drugs.

Nearly 20 months later, following a probe that cost upwards of $20 million, Mitchell concluded something that to many fans seemed obvious: For more than a decade, the use of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing substances has been widespread in the major leagues.

Club officials routinely discussed the possibility of substance abuse when evaluating players, according to the report. Players who allegedly sought the boost of various performance-enhancing substances range from the brightest of All-Stars, such as former San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds and former New York Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens, to those at the leagues' lower rungs, such as former Detroit Tiger and Washington National center fielder Exavier "Nook" Logan.

Everyone shared the blame for the development of the problem, according to the Mitchell report, including the players; the players' union, which resisted testing as an invasion of privacy; the owners, who prior to 2002 were solely focused on the economics of the sport; trainers and others who supplied the drugs.

The sport was slow to see the crisis coming, said Mitchell. He made a number of recommendations that he said would help bring baseball's antidrug regime up to world standards, if implemented.

Among Mitchell's proposed changes: aggressive investigation of nontesting evidence of drug possession or use; more cooperation with law enforcement authorities; greatly improved off-season random testing; and the outsourcing of test administration to an independent agency.

The players' union must approve a number of the changes, noted Mitchell. But "I believe that the principal beneficiaries of these reforms will be the majority of major league players who play clean and follow the rules," Mitchell concluded in his report. "These players have been harmed by having to play against violators who gained an unfair advantage.... The clean major league players deserve far better than they have had to endure."

Mitchell's recommendations are in line with the opinion of many national and international testing officials and experts, who deem baseball's current test regimen to be outdated and easy to fool.

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For further information:
•	Full text of Senator Mitchell's report MLB.com
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