The much anticipated Mitchell Report was released today.
Roger Clemens, Miguel Tejada, Andy Pettitte, Eric Gagne, Jason Giambi, Troy Glaus, Gary Matthews Jr., Jose Guillen, Brian Roberts, Paul Lo Duca and Rick Ankiel were singled out as steroid users.
ESPN reported:
Roger Clemens, Miguel Tejada and Andy Pettitte were among 75 players named in the long-awaited Mitchell report on Thursday, an All-Star roster linked to steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs that put a question mark — if not an asterisk — next to some of baseball’s biggest moments.
Barry Bonds, already under indictment on charges of lying to a federal grand jury about steroids, and Gary Sheffield also showed up in Major League Baseball’s most infamous lineup since the Black Sox scandal.
The report by former Senator Majority Leader George Mitchell, who was hired by commissioner Bud Selig to examine the Steroids Era, blamed both players and management for the problem.
“Everyone involved in baseball over the past two decades — commissioners, club officials, the players’ association and players — shares to some extent the responsibility for the steroids era,” Mitchell said in summation of his 20-month investigation. “There was a collective failure to recognize the problem as it emerged and to deal with it early on.”
Mitchell recommended that the drug-testing program be made independent, that a list of the substances players test positive for be listed periodically and that the timing of testing be more unpredictable.
Selig will hold his own news conference at 4:30 p.m. ET in New York and union officials will speak at 6 p.m. at a separate location.
Eric Gagne, Jason Giambi, Troy Glaus, Gary Matthews Jr., Jose Guillen, Brian Roberts, Paul Lo Duca and Rick Ankiel were among other current players named in the report — in fact, there’s an All-Star at every position. Some were linked to human growth hormone, others to steroids.
The entire report is posted HERE.
The New York Times has more on the report.
