By Staff
The long-awaited Mitchell Report on steroids in baseball delivered the goods Thursday afternoon.
While many wondered if baseball would get the bang for its bucks, it didn't take long for the names to start leaking out prior to the 2 p.m. release of the report.
Everyone knew that Barry Bonds would show up in the report, but few would have expected Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte to be on the list.
In all, seven Most Valuable Players and 31 All-Stars were represented in the 406-page report.
We agree with former senator George Mitchell that baseball should not begin a "witch hunt" to find every player who may have used performance enhancing drugs in the era that will be forever known as the "Steroids Era."
Mitchell instead, in his recommendations, said that it is time that everyone get on the same page and move forward from here.
Baseball will recover from this. Although Thursday as certainly a black eye for the sport, it was not a fatal wound.
Everyone wants to have names, but who did what and when is not as important as how can baseball keep this from happening again.
The league, the Players' Association and the club owners need to work together to come up with a comprehensive drug policy that addresses the concerns in Mitchell's report.
If they do that, then baseball will crawl out from under the black cloud that has been hanging over its head for nearly a decade now.
Baseball is still considered our "national pastime" by many. Thursday the game took a shot to the stomach. It's "gut-check" time for Commissioner Bud Selig and the Players' Union.
Take a deep breath, learn from your mistakes and move forward.