...at 1:01 Central Time today, you pulled up a PDF of the Mitchell Report, typed "pujols" into the search box, and hit enter.
That's what I did, and after taking a look at some of the blogs this afternoon, that's what a lot of people did. We all registered relief when no results came back, but it's unwise to view a player's absence from the report as evidence that he doesn't use steroids. I believe Pujols is clean---he's shown none of the steroid-type spikes associated with steroid use, he has no reason (dipping production or being on the major league margin) to use, and he strikes me as an honest, straightforward man who sincerely cares about the integrity of the game. But on this report were 86 names that somebody was certain would never, ever use steroids. And anybody who thinks that the list, which used only two sources for most of the names it generated, is comprehensive is deluded. The list could be off by an order of magnitude---the players listed are remarkably diverse in terms of team, position, and age, but the one thing they seem to have in common is their carelessness. Presumably, there is another group of players (and trainers, and doctors, and executives) that was careful enough to steer clear of the investigation.
I was not alone among St. Louis fans in being relieved that the Cardinals were not terribly hard hit by the report. What a horrible way to react---finding only a few minor players from your favorite team implicated in this awfully damning report and treating that as a silver lining---but that's unfortunately the world we live in. Steroids have arguably ruined the last decade of the game, at least in terms of statistics and comparing with other eras. I wouldn't want to be a Hall of Fame voter right now---I'd be compelled not to vote for players linked with steroids, but even that is troubling because a) many of the links are based on hearsay and b) withholding votes from steroid users is essentially tacit approval of the people you vote for as being clean players, when you actually have no idea.
As I looked through the results of the investigation, one name jumped off the page. Fernando Vina. Fernando Vina? The guy who sits in between Mark McGwire and Tony Pena as the Cardinal acquisitions in which I am most disappointed? The guy whose only recourse for getting on base was attempting to get hit by a pitch? Was he taking steroid injections into his right elbow? Did he discuss with his trainer a mix of drugs that would allow him to dangle his limbs into the strike zone? Did he develop such a super-strong elbow that he was able to deflect fastballs with it four times a game? When the steroids came in, did the side of the package say, "Side effects may include an insanely overmanicured goatee"? That Fernando Vina?
This is really depressing, and the saddest part is that it probably doesn't get any better until Major League Baseball develops and agrees on a test for human growth hormone. As has been said elsewhere, the focus is on names like Roger Clemens when it should have been squarely on two names, Bud Selig and Donald Fehr. And shame on all of us fans, too, by the way. None of the stakeholders in this thing asked enough questions or demanded enough action, and now we're paying the price for it.
In other news, the Astros traded five players for Miguel Tejada (possibly the most productive active player implicated in the report) a couple days ago. Before the 2007 season, a couple Houston friends asked what I thought the Astros should do about Roger Clemens. I said that they should pay him $3 million to go play somewhere else. The reason behind that is that signing Roger Clemens, with his ability to lift the team out of the doldrums and into the playoff hunt, awakened something (let's call it hope) that was not necessarily productive in the long term. I didn't think the Astros would ever be great again with Roger Clemens; just good enough to almost make the playoffs. And with the way they tend to give up prospects, I think their focus should be squarely on the future. They don't need Roger Clemens around to change their viewpoint on "win now" vs. "win later". Well, the Astros have proven that they don't need Roger Clemens around to help them make ill-advised short term decisions; they can do that just fine on their own. In Tejada, they get a very good player for at least (and maybe only) one year. They gave up five players, including some promising youngsters, with 27 years remaining on their combined contracts. Yikes.
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