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Besides, Mitchell identifies far too many culprits for baseball to punish. “Obviously the players who used performance enhancing drugs are responsible for their actions,” he wrote. “But they did not act in a vacuum. Everyone involved in baseball over the past two decades–Commissioners, club officials, the Players Association, and players–shares to some extent in the responsibility for the steroids era. There was a collective failure to recognize the problem and to deal with it early on.”
If today some sportswriters feel embarrassment over the blown story–and I know some do–the local coverage I saw of Mitchell’s report didn’t reflect it. The writers who weighed in sounded a lot more punitive than reflective. It’s in their power to punish the most notable miscreants, and they intend to.
