1. If you’re not reading the New York Times’ baseball blog, BATS, for updates from the MLB Congressional hearings, than you are chump. The highlight so far, in my opinion:

(Christopher) Shays (R-Conn.) continued, and later during his five minutes referred to Rafael Palmeiro as “Palmerry.” Mitchell kept his composure during a confounding question, regarding whether Palmeiro had tested positive “before his three-hundredth hit?”

A knowledgeable baseball fan despite recent events, Mitchell responded: “I’m sorry, before what?”

2. The Philly Phanatic is voted number one sports mascot. No argument here. Though, I will take issue with the ninth ranked mascot, Rally, who apparently is affiliated with the Atlanta Braves. Has anybody ever heard of Rally? I lived in Atlanta for three years and this is the first time I’ve ever heard of a Braves mascot.

3. Bill Conlin takes a moment to do the only thing that he really does well — talk about stuff that happened 50 years ago. In this case, he’s talking about the life of recently deceased Johnny Podres, who was a pitching coach for the Phillies under Jim Fregosi, and before that led the Brooklyn Dodgers to the 1955 World Series championship. It’s a good read. You can also read about Pods here and here.

The time for knee-jerk reactions to the Mitchell report has passed. Now it’s time for deeper analysis, more thoughtful reflections, and, best of all, time to make fun of those knee-jerk reactions. First, we examine claims that the report reflects a pro-Red Sox bias.

I didn’t pay too much attention when the Mitchell report was commissioned. So color me surprised a few months ago to read that the man being tasked with investigating steroids in baseball is also a director with the Boston Red Sox. “Gee,” I thought, “Even if the man’s a saint, that’s a pretty clear conflict of interest. How will he have any credibility?” Well, it turns out that while you might be able to broker peace in Northern Ireland, orchestrating a cease-fire between Red Sox fans and Yankee fans is a horse of a different color.

The morning before the report was due to be released, rumors chased each other around the internet that it would expose key Red Sox players such as beatified captain Jason Varitek, who seemed to lose some size and pop in 2005 when testing began, and Nomar Garciaparra, who got big, fast, and whose connective tissue was never the same afterwards. I was not surprised that Yankee fans instantly pounced on Mitchell’s position with the Red Sox (a position from which he has been on leave lo these 20 months) and to accuse him of bias and call the report a sham. While I am sympathetic to their rage, I think a recourse to the facts throws cold water on any conspiracy theories. The report named 14 players who, at some point, had played for the Red Sox, and quoted from some  unvarnished emails between Sox GM Theo Epstein and scouts on the subject of steroids. The report named 22 Yankees. Taking into consideration that most of the report’s information was gleaned from New York-based steroid dealers with a lot of ties to the Yankees and the Mets, I don’t think that shows any real evidence of bias. George Mitchell himself was the first to admit that his report was far from the last word on steroid use in baseball.

Apparently, however, others take a different view, such as Thurmon Munson Should Be in the Hall of Fame:

Is it just me, or is Mo Vaughn the only Red Sox player (sans Brendan Donnelly) on the list?

Something stinks up there in Beantown, and this time it’s not just the Red Sox.

Jeannie and I were at our favorite Mexican restaurant for about an hour at lunch, and the ESPNation mentioned Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Barry Bonds and Miguel Tejada.

Just those 4 players…

For an hour straight…

The “Mitchell” scroll tab at the bottom of the TV screen reported Clemens and Pettitte ONLY. Over and over and over and over and over.

No mention of any other players, other than Jason Giambi.

Just the Yankee players.

And we’re to believe that this report isn’t biased?

Yeah… RIIIIIIIIGHHHTTT…

First, there are 12 other guys TMSBITHOF conveniently forgot to mention (including Eric Gagne), along with the unflattering Epstein emails. Second, to leap from “Something stinks up there in Beantown” to lambasting ESPN’s coverage of the report and back to “and we’re to believe that this report isn’t biased?” is such a case of the nonsequiturs, I am not even sure where to begin. ESPN had nothing to do with the Mitchell Report. How does ESPN focusing on the Yankee players cast any shadows on the report itself? As to why ESPN would focus on some names and not others, well, ESPN is a New York-based company, first of all, and much like supposed national print outlets the New York Times and the New Yorker, they consider anything that affects the Big Apple to be their lead story. And let’s face it, Clemens is bigger news than Mo Vaughn, who isn’t even an active player anymore. In fact, I don’t even know why I’ve spent this long eviscerating such an illogical and poorly written post. I mean, it practically eviscerates itself! Yet still, the topic has been cropping up on various message boards. And certainly, reporters asked about the conflict of interest at the news conference last week. So is there anyone else out there who really thinks this thing is biased? Have you read anything else claiming undue influence by pro-Sox or anti-Yank sentiment? What do you think?

So today at work, at approximately 1:30 EST, the call went out: cubicle drones, go home! A massive snow storm was about to hit New England, and we were instructed to flee before it. And its wintry wrath. Out into the swirling white I went, and soon I was ensconced in my cozy (read: pathetically small) apartment and happily curled up with my laptop and the Mitchell report. Soon thereafter (following a brief sojourn for provisions) I was curled up with my laptop, the Mitchell report, and a Kahlua mudslide. And thus, without further ado, I present random and slightly inebriated thoughts on the Mitchell report:

1. Initial reaction: Despite morning rumors that current members of the Red Sox would be named—including captain Jason Varitek and former right fielder Trot Nixon—and assuming that former shortstop and ex-franchise face Nomar Garciaparra would be among the list, no members of the ‘04 or ‘07 championship teams were named. I admit, as a shameless Boston homer, that I have had enough of asterisks next our championship teams (thank you, Bill Belichick*). With several players who had been on the Red Sox named, only one was caught with steroids while he was playing for Boston (and he was some minor bit-player whose name I can’t even remember right now). I feel like my boys dodged a bullet. Is it so wrong for me to be relieved?

2. The way that Mitchell arranged his evidence chronologically highlighted the viral nature of steroid use. One guy tries it in one city; he tells his friend about it; the friend gets traded two a new city; he tells a couple guys about it; one of them leaves to play somewhere else….and you get the idea. Not surprising, but kinda creepy all the same. A Hercule Poirot-caliber bit of detective work by Mitchell. And without subpoena power!

3. That said, the entire report is limited by being so dependent on Radomski and his various associates. It’s clear that he was far from the only dealer in the game. The fact that the majority of players named in the report hail from ballclubs like the Yankees, the Orioles, the Yankees, the Diamondbacks, the Yankees, the Dodgers, the Yankees, and the Mets is obviously due to the fact that Radomski and his minions were closely linked to those clubs. It doesn’t mean that other clubs are innocent. It only means those players didn’t buy their drugs from guys in Radomski’s ring.

4. When early reports suggested that over a hundred MLB players could be named, I began to doubt my conviction that steroid-users should be kept out of the Hall of Fame. Maybe the problem was too widespread to make such a harsh judgment. But then I read the actual list. The only HOF lock is Roger Clemens. Will I cry for Roger if he gets shut out of Cooperstown? No. Do I think that will actually happen? Hell no. Today’s report actually makes it more likely that Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds will be elected to the Hall, because it shows how widespread the problem was. Same goes for Clemens. That said, I wouldn’t be sorry to see Clemens get the Pete Rose treatment. At least Dan Duquette can finally sleep easy again.

5. One question people have been asking me is, “Why does Congress even give a hoot what baseball does?” The answer, broadly, is that major league baseball is a monopoly that gets an exemption from anti-trust law from Congress. That is to say, Congress allows MLB to continue on as a monopoly as long as they’re good girls and boys and keep their noses clean. Essentially, this gives them oversight of baseball. Maybe not to the degree that the police have oversight of your driving habits, but definitely to the extent that your parents did when you were sixteen. Sure, it was legal for you to drive…as long as Dad would let you borrow the car.

6. The one reaction to this report I just don’t understand is apathy. Despite the fact that there are, right now, over 14,000 news articles on this topic coming up on Google, there are still some folks out there who just don’t care! Worse, there are baseball fans out there who claim not to care. You guys should donate your brains to science.