Major League Baseball has had no claim to the sacred for a very long time—certainly not after many of its big-name players began falling out of the pharmaceutical closet. And this year it truly descended to the profane when Barry Bonds, just months ahead of his federal indictment for lying to a grand jury about his use of performance-enhancing drugs, broke the game's most hallowed record as its all-time home run king.

So perhaps nobody should have been surprised—certainly not after some of the rare confessors, like Jose Canseco and the late Ken Caminiti, described steroid use in baseball as epidemic—by anything former senator George Mitchell revealed today as a result of his investigation into drug use in the game. Still, there had to be gasps throughout the nation as the greatest pitcher of the modern era, Roger Clemens, was fingered as a drug cheat right alongside Bonds. For his part, Clemens is denying everything. Late in the day Clemens's lawyer, Rusty Hardin, issued a statement calling the inclusion of his client's name "very unfair." Hardin said, "He is left with no meaningful way to combat what he strongly contends are totally false allegations. He has not been charged with anything, he will not be charged with anything, and yet he is being tried in the court of public opinion with no recourse."

Nobody, certainly not Mitchell, was pretending that the list of some six dozen names was comprehensive. Most of those named appear to be players unlucky enough to have procured steroids from one of two men: Kirk Radomski, a former New York Mets clubhouse assistant who cooperated as part of a federal plea agreement, and Brian McNamee, Clemens's former personal trainer who became a New York Yankees strength and conditioning coach. And the report owes a clear debt to "Game of Shadows," the book about Bonds's ties to the BALCO drug lab. Still, after a 21-month chase, with virtually no players cooperating with him and no special investigatory powers, Mitchell did name names that reflected a broad cross-section of the game, from a potential Hall of Famer to marginal big-leaguers, from bulked-up sluggers to scrawny infielders, and pitchers of all stripes—not just pin-.

The list included current big-name players—Andy Pettitte, Miguel Tejada, Eric Gagne, Paul Lo Duca, Gary Sheffield, and Brian Roberts—as well as former stars—Kevin Brown, Chuck Knoblauch, Lenny Dykstra, David Justice, Mo Vaughn, Matt Williams and Benito Santiago. (See a gallery of some of the biggest names among current players in the report). Except for Clemens, none of the players named in the report had immediate comment. Mitchell insisted that he didn't simply rely on the testimony of cooperating witnesses, but that he had corroborating evidence. Still, some of it, at least as produced in the report, seems rather sketchy, vague and possibly inconclusive.
 

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