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Greg Pappas

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The one thing you can be sure of is that certain individuals, both players and management, will be protected from public scorn no matter how guilty they are, and that others will suffer disproportionately from the wrath of a public that is willing to elect an admitted steroid user from 20 years ago when they were just as illegal as they are now governor of a state but suddenly can't stand the thought of baseball players using them (in much more moderation than Schwarzenneger did) because a surly black man who happened to use steroids broke a stupid home run record.
Schwarzenegger and society at large are not what the issue is about. Steroids are against the rules of the game. McGwire did not get elected to the Hall of Fame this summer and he's not a "surly black man." If there's going to be any "disproportionate" scorn, it will be for the higher profile players, regardless of race. If the net catches Gary Matthews *yawn*. However, if the net catches Roger Clemens, there will be huge coverage.
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I'm not jumping to conclusions. He said "allegations" not "evidence."

It sound to me like you are jumping to conclusions about exactly what the word "allegations" means to Mitchell... that you've concluded that he uses "allegations" as a synonym for "vacuous rumors unsupported by anything compelling, substantive or trustworthy".

I have no idea what he means, nor do I know what standard he applied to decide whether or not to name somebody. So, you could be right. Or not.

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I'm not jumping to conclusions. He said "allegations" not "evidence." Credit card information or even shipping records from a pharmacy would be more than allegations. The word of Kirk Radomski without any corroborating evidence should not be enough to justify damaging someone's career by including their name in the report. Certainly the people Radomski named should be investigated, but if the only "dirt" Mitchell can drag up is that the player didn't feel like participating in his witch hunt, that is not enough to justify the damage he will do to them by printing their name in his report. Perhaps he just spoke imprecisely, but from what he said it is clear that he will deal in his report with mere "allegations" or in other words, heresay.

If a player gets a finger pointed at them by somebody and doesn't want to talk to George Mitchell about it, that's perfectly within his rights and while some people who want to believe they are guilty or don't understand any of the nuances of the situation may take that as a sign of guilt, the professional investigator in the case should know better. There is probably no player in baseball who doesn't have knowledge of other players using PEDs and in many cases, the players they have that knowledge about are their friends. Most of the players who haven't used probably did feel some pressure to do so and therefore have some sympathy for the guys who caved and used something. They have every reason not to want to put themselves in a situation where they're going to be pressured to divulge information about others in order to protect their own name, and that pressure could be applied just as easily to an accused but innocent player as to a guilty player. The whole thing is just a mockery and has done nothing but further undermine any remaining "credibility" MLB had.

Anyone accused will have ample opportunity to defend himself. That doesn't mean selling out teammates or ratting somebody out. It could be as simple as saying that "I was not living at the address where the steroids were sent. Look, here's my cell phone bill that says I was in Chicago the whole time."

It's telling that few players who have been accused so far have opted to defend themselves in a meaningful way. I don't think this is for the somewhat noble reasons you describe above. They aren't defending themselves because they are guilty.

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