MLB: The Mitchell Report

I took a little time to read a few pages of the report about drug abuse in baseball which was conducted by Senator Mitchell and which was released last week. It is very pleasant to have the opportunity to actually read the stuff everybody is talking about in the media, something that rarely happens over here in Germany. When there is a report, it is handed out to the journalists and they interpret it for the readers and viewers in their respective magazines and shows.
So, getting back to the topic I found it very interesting that none of the players cooperated with Senator Mitchell. This very much reminds me of what is happening in cycling over the past few years. There is a wall of silence and the guys who actually speak about what they did are sports counterparts to mafia traitors who broke the rule of the "omertá". So, well, yeah, no one said anything, everything is based on federal investigations and two or three whistleblowers.
Speaking of whistleblowers, it seems that the biggest surprise was the inclusion of Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens in the report. Now I believe I don't have the slightest clue about how big a star he is in the USA, but again comparing it to cycling noone is safe from being accused of abusing drugs. In cycling a lot of the big stars of the past admitted that they used performance enhancing drungs like EPO and I think that those guys who strongly deny that they ever had anything to do with that stuff will at some point have to admit that they did it as well (think Lance Armstrong here).

The interesting thing is how the public will react to this and all the commentators I've heard said that nothing will come out of this. There will be no spectacular consequences. And this, I believe, will affect how baseball is seen abroad in countries that don't have a huge baseball following. People there will say that that's the sport with those big guys completely blown out of proportion because they all use drugs to enhance their play. I won't go so far to point the finger only at baseball (Rugby might have a huge problem as well, considering what players looked like a few years ago and what they look today), but I think it's sad that MLB won't use this report to clean up the sport. Cycluing has shown that you need drastic actions to start things.