Lists, official and unofficial

Posted on December 13, 2007 by David Randall

This morning, before the 2:00 PM release of the official Mitchell Report on use of performance-enhancing substances in baseball, an email circulated with a purported list of dirty players. Some of the names on the unofficial list did not appear in the Mitchell Report, including Jason Varitek, Nomar Garciappara, Johnny Damon, Carl Everett, Rich Garces, Trot Nixon, Jose Offerman, and Julian Tavarez. A global search of current and former on the unofficial list reveals that of its 77 names at least eight–over ten percent–of the players do not appear in Mitchell’s report. (ESPN prepared a list of those named in the official report.)

What’s up with that? Who propagated this unofficial list? How many others does it name erroneously? It’s hard to understand how this list could be so wrong if it was assembled in good faith, which suggests it wasn’t. So what’s the story?

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  • cujoespo

    Mitchell is a conspirator for the Red Sox!

    At least 9 of the players on his official list were one time or current Yankees (Clemens, Pettite, Giambi, Knoblauch, Justice, Villone, Stanton, Rondell White and Matt Lawton). Not that all of them have the star quality or notability of the first 5, but still most of them have been and will always be associated with the Yanks. The only Red Sox were Paxton Crawford and Manny Alexander (Who?). Mitchell did a great job of naming Yankees who played for other teams, but are pretty well known for playing on the Yankees. The only “True” Yankees on the list is Pettite, and even he played for the Astros. Oh and Giambi has now earned “full” Yankee status because he hit that Grand Slam while it was raining to win the game against the Twins, like 4 years ago.

    Mitchell’s report was brilliant because it doesn’t allow MLB to punish anyone because all of the evidence was prior to 2003 really. Also the entire report is hearsay, especially for the big names (A.K.A. Clemens and Pettite). If MLB were to even try to suspend any of the active guys in the report, the players’ association would have a field day. All Clemens and Pettite have to do is deny what McNamee said and really they are off the hook. There’s absolutely no paper trail (that the Mitchell Report found).
    MLB looks like it has done something to stem the use of performance enhancing drugs in Baseball by commissioning the report, and they now have an excuse for performing new and reforming current drug tests. Oh and the Hooten foundation is there to stop kids from doing steroids, and MLB supports that cause. Just so everyone knows.