Will Carrol, you, Jon Weisman... all saying essentially that it's time to let bygones be bygones. I get it. I really do. But I have to be rational in my job, well-researched, responsible. I don't want to be that as a sports fan (though I can be). So here goes...

How come Marion Jones is banned eight-ways to Sunday and these guys will no doubt get off scott-free? The wife asked this about an hour ago. I know Will thinks this is a witch-hunt and in regard to baseball and PEDs, he's Mt. Everest smart while I'm still making my way up the stairs. But I ask anyway--Marion be badly punished, the baseball players not so much. Por que?

I guess the simple answer would be that steroids were being tested for and there was a strong set of guidelines set up against them in olympic competition, while in baseball...it was basically look the other way.

Now that the guidelines are set and the tests are being administered, I'm all for throwing the book at 'em.

The Olympics has a very clear set of strict guidelines, and a history of being hardliners about enforcement.

MLB, on the other hand, had very inadequate policies until very recently, willfully lax enforcement, and no expectation that would change. People like Bonds very likely took performance enhancing drugs. Whether they ever violated baseball rules at the time is another story entirely. It's really bad show to retroactively punish someone for something that was legal, if ethically challenged, to do when they did it.

If MLB wants to adopt the Olympics rules and enforce them going forward, that's fine. But you can't retroactively make up rules. A lot of the substances in question are perfectly legal for you and I to take - it's not like cocaine.

And really, none of us wants to really fully unravel the past. Discredit the last ten years due to steroid, what about earlier? The Big Red Machine was a product of Greenies, the Yankees are a who's-who of Alcoholism, the 80s were cocaine - this kind of thing has been widespread since the inception of sport. It's just that the technology has gotten better now and people's dissatisfaction with the moral character of athletes has gone up dramatically recently.

It's a proverbial can of worms, full of not fun stuff, and most of us would rather they fix it going forward in a clear and consistent manner, and get back to watching men hit balls with bats, rather than try and judge which era's sins were greatest. (I'd take the Steroids era over the pre-Integration era any day, for moral character, by the way.)

Thanks, man. Long day.

By the by, I'm showing the comedy clip to my colleagues at the high school. Here's one interesting reaction: "I didn't know comedy clubs were that seedy." Another: "That ain't Comedy Central."

Thanks, kirbyk. Your reasoning would appear like a synthesis of what I spout on a regular basis. So of course, I believe what you wrote is brilliant!

SufBruin. Are you showing the clip from rooftop comedy? Some clubs are seedier than others. The comedy store is as famous as any club in the country, but it is a real dump. I always refer people to some of the famous rock and roll clubs like the whiskey and cbgb's. Great places to hear music, but they ain't the taj majal. I plan on doing a little different set tonight and will be posting it up next week, as I'm working out the kinks of the whole 2 mics deal.

1 The previous answers to your question were accurate. But the real answer is that Marion Jones isn't a billion dollar a year industry. It's in nobody's interest to deal with the problem too harshly. That is why Selig kept his head in the sand for so long. Way back when baseball was little more than the corner soda shop, no one was bigger than the integrity of the game. Now, baseball is McDonald's and everyone is. This is one of the trade-offs we have to accept in the modern game.
The silver lining is that fans can still just try to enjoy the game for the game's sake. Ignore all the hype, the home run contests, the Fox strike zone report by Menin and enjoy the game.

The weird thing about your clip, Scott, is the neon Chaplin face. Because Chaplin was so well known for his standup...(?)

There was one funny part in the report--when McNamee saw that Clemens had some really powerful and potentially dangerous steroids he was thinking about taking instead of his usual steroids, McNamee took them away...and gave them to Conseco.

lol.

"New idea for Singular Cellphone Ad. Senator Mitchell gives Roger Clemens a jingle and proceeds to ask him about his usage of PED's. Clemens tells him he is ready to come clean and then...the line goes blank on Clemens' end, as his service is crappy. It works for me."

Have you been having fun at Primer today, Scott?

http://tinyurl.com/yt4bp7 (post 7)

Didn't see the primer post. Good stuff, though I think it needed to be fleshed out a little more. This was just another problem I had with Bonds being lambasted, while Clemens was doing TV ads and getting glowing feature pieces done on him by 60 Minutes.

I have no idea what the point of the Mitchell Report is.

1) Steroids have been, and maybe still are prevalent in MLB? Pretty sure we all knew that.

2) Some real famous baseball dudes are alleged to have used Steroids? Yep, pretty sure I knew that too.

3) Hearsay, and cherry picked anecdotes make for good copy and create the illusion that someone is taking something seriously? I for sure knew that.

So what's the point? The players named will all deny it, and in the absence of a positive test, there's not a damn thing anyone can do about it. That's where theses guys are different than Marion Jones.

Here's my bullet-point summary of the Mitchell Report....

-- Recap of "Game of Shadows".
-- All the guys who gave checks to Radomski for steroids and HGH, and Radomski's recollections about his relationships with them. (Radomski's the former Mets employee.)
-- McNamee and Radomski are connected. McNamee talked. (McNamee's the former Yankees employee.)
-- Larry Bigbie talked. David Segui talked. Every other player I can recall declined to talk or gave non-answers to Mitchell's people.
-- Recap of the Florida "wellness clinic" raid that implicated Rick Ankiel.

The one named guy that I think got truly hosed was Brian Roberts. The only evidence presented for his alleged steroid use is Larry Bigbie recalling that Roberts told him that he tried steroids once or twice. Apparently, the Mitchell people thought that warranted his own section. For everyone else, there was at least an attempt to tie him directly to BALCO, Radomski, McNamee, or the Florida clinic.

What racial overtones Scott?

The guy that got this whole steroid thing going was Mark McGwire back in the late 90s.

He's as white as they come.

I don't usually follow along with the whole race card thing, but I think it is applicable here. Mac hasn't faced half the shots that bonds has and barry spent more than half of his career clean. Most of us have heard the rumors about clemens, but he got mostly a free-ride, despite being almost as big of a jerk as bonds.

I never liked bonds, even when he was clean, but he receiving so much of the steroids wrath has made me feel that he's faced too much criticism. I can see why many black athletes look at the shots he has talken and then look at all the white players who have gotten noting close to it and see race as a major factor. I realize there is the big home run record that attaches the scrutiny to bonds, but bonds being public enemy number 1 though 5 was unfair.

I'm going to be terrible and blogwhore here. I wrote about the Mitchell Report and how it seemed so coincidental that the Golden Globe nominations came out the same day.

http://imnotonetoblogbut.blogspot.com/2007/12/steroid-noise-annoys.html

I am all for regular contributors here giving out links to something they wrote at their own blog. If you are an interesting writer like George, you will turn some people on to what you offer. If you are not good, be aware that the hit police are pretty strong at the Toaster.