Aftermath
Listed in: BaseballOk, so the Mitchell Report has been out for 24 hours or so. Everyone's seen the list of names, so there's no use repeating them. What I want to do is examine a few potential future scenarios for Major League Baseball in the wake of the Mitchell Report.
The Utopian Scenario
MLB and the player's union agree to a new set of testing protocol, which includes both year-round testing and blood testing. Both parties fund initiatives to prevent PED use in the minor leagues, college game, and high schools. Everyone understands that the PED era was an unfortunate chapter in the game's history, but that no one person or group was to blame. The owners wanted offense, players wanted money, the media wanted stories, and the fans didn't care how the players got big, just that they helped their teams win.
The Dystopian Scenario
Instead of working together, the owners and players instead get involved in a protacted blame game. The owners claim that players acted without their knowledge, and that owners, coaches, and other team employees can't be held to blame. The players allege that team doctors acted to either provide PEDs or steer players to them, and that they at least tacitly endorsed the PED boom because they got addicted to the surge in offense, and surge in attendance and ratings that followed the 1994 strike. The media and public are more interested in taking down prominent players than in accepting the fact that a large portion of players used PEDs.
The Middle Scenario
The owners and players adopt a few new testing standards (most likely year-round testing, but no blood tests), and mostly manage to avoid a public squabble about the PED era. The media and the fans get their pound of flesh, but also a better understanding that PED use was rampant in baseball.
Obviously, the middle scenario seems to be the most likely one. I think the Mitchell Report will be impetus for at least some change, but ridding the game of PED use is practically impossible. Even with blood testing, their will always be ways for players to avoid detection. Unfortunately, innocence is impossible to regain once it's lost, and that's the reality that we all have to face.
