Salem Witch Trials, McCarthyism, and the Mitchell Report on MLB

You got to love America. Our freedom, our passion, our constant pursue of happiness is the envy of the world. I know it first hand. I was born in a communist country that was in a constant state of oppression, and people dreamed of coming to this great land.

Still, there are times when we get it wrong. When hype, becomes frenzy, becomes mob rule mentality. Check our history and you will see it. We hung suspected witches in 1692 after one of these frantic out bursts. Then there was a Senator named McCarthy in the 1950’s that saw a dangerous commies hiding out in plane sight, and mob mentality kick into high gear again, the Red scare was on.

Half a century later we are willing to go at it again, courtesy of the Mitchell Report on steroid use in Major League Baseball. The report, the work of George J. Mitchell a former Senator who was asked to look into the matter by baseball commissioner Bud Selig is nothing short of McCarthy’s black list. Why? Because it offers up a small list of names and serves it up on a platter for public consumption. Who needs a trial by jury when you can have hearsay turn to conviction in the court of public opinion? Get the mob mentality going on this and even a scumbag like Selig can look like the savior of baseball.

Only he is not. If Selig really loved the national pastime he would have taken great pains to look into the matter long before this. Why didn’t he? Because the minute that players like Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa started their assault on baseball’s most sacred records, the owner started making money. And since Selig was once an owner, and is now paid by the owners, he turned a blind eye to the allegations. The records kept falling, and the allegations deepened. Along came Barry Bonds shattering every mark he could get his bat on. Bonds was no Sammy, he was no McGwire either, and rumors turned into outcry. Selig could no longer embrace Barry, the way he had Sammy and Mark. The mob demanded justice.

So Selig, who is about as dumb as a fox, came up with the Mitchell Report. Give the mob what it wanted, fresh blood. Offer names, lots of names, though not enough names to shut down the game. Still offer names, hang the proverbial witch, be proclaimed a savior and move to the next stage of life.

Now before you mistake me for a baseball apologist, lets think about what happened here. Did Bud take the report, call in those standing accused into his office and deal with each transgression, or did he feed the names to the mob? Did he handle the matter with a level of aplomb and honor, or did he wash his hands of those who helped him get the multi-million dollar job he enjoys?

Let’s go a step further, were you to make a mistake at work, would you want it to be handled quietly one on one, or would you want it on the 6 O’clock news? See where I am getting at here? Are the players guilty? Sure, those on the list and more. It doesn’t make what happened here any less of a witch-hunt though. It also does not make Selig a savior. To me he is a hypocrite, and a villain. Nothing short of his resignation would suite me. But hey, the mob has its witches to hang, Selig has seen to that. The game can go on now. All I hope is that something good can come out of this. Maybe, just maybe, someone will look at a player like Dale Murphy, he of squeaky clean reputation, two MVPs, and over 390 legit home runs and say, there stands our next real Hall of Famer. Here’s hoping.