Curious George Takes a Dump

George as in George Mitchell, that is. The former senator from Maine has now released his report concerning the use of steroids in baseball. Some of the names are headliners - Roger Clemens, Andy Pettite, Miguel Tejada. Some are ghosts - Lenny Dykstra, Mo Vaughn, Chuck Knoblauch. Most are marginal players - Larry Bigbie, Cody McKay, Bart Miadich.

There are around 80 names all told. We know all about Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi. I would claim to be a little surprised about Rondell White and a surprising nest of former Braves pitchers, like Denny Neagle, Kent Mercker and Mike Stanton. We continue to suspect other names not listed here - Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Luis Gonzalez.

So what do we make of it all? Here are a few thoughts:

• The revelations of the new names may make this news, but it's very old story. This story is simply a variation on the Faust legend that has been told countless times. There have always been people who are willing to sell their soul for transitory glory. Eventually the devil comes to collect. This time, his messenger happens to be a former senator from Maine. (And no, I'm not saying Senator Mitchell is in any way satanic, although he did treat President Bush 41 like hell.) Some 400 years ago, Marlowe wrote the story. Some 175 years ago, Steven Vincent Benet wrote the story. This time, apparently Buster Olney is writing it. But it's the same story.
• It will be very interesting to see if Roger Clemens garners the same level of oppobrium that Barry Bonds has lived with in the last few years. If what's contained in the Mitchell report is true, their stories are remarkably similar - players who were likely headed for the Hall of Fame on merit, but who wanted to reach further and used artificial means to artificially extend their careers. Bonds may be one of the 10 most hated men in America. Will Clemens face the same wrath? We're about to find out.
• The question about the Hall of Fame is going to come up, especially since Clemens and Bonds are among the top five players at their positions in the history of the game. I've mentioned Bill James's book The Politics of Glory before, but I would commend it to your attention, because it explains why the Hall of Fame is already a deeply compromised institution. You might think a HOF with Bonds would be tainted. You might even be right. But a HOF that already contains Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Gaylord Perry and many similar rogues is already tainted to some degree. I'm not sure what you do about hygiene at this point.
• And how do we view this entire era? I would suggest that we view the era in the same way we view the early 1930s, a time of incredible offensive production that has almost no bearing on what happened in the following years. Hack Wilson hit 191 RBIs in 1930. No one has seriously approached that record in many years. The record is on the books, but today we don't look at Hack Wilson in the same way we look at some of his contemporaries, like Gehrig, Ott and Foxx. We'll have to cast a gimlet eye on some of the achievements of the era, but others will likely stand. We might devalue Bonds or Clemens, but we'll likely still be able to sing the praises of Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols, Greg Maddux and Randy Johnson. That is, unless Curious George has more names to reveal later on.