Prelude to the Mitchell Report

Tomorrow, the Mitchell Report will be released. I will not add anything to this blog until I have read it, immersed myself in the media coverage, and tore up a bunch of old baseball cards. People in the media have been playing up and playing down the possible implications of this report. And it is true that the Mitchell Report might just be another step in the unfolding saga of steroids in baseball. But I think we all know better than that. December 13, 2007 might just be the most important day in baseball history since April 15, 1947, when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. After tomorrow, everything could be different.

Tomorrow will be the lowest point in baseball's storied history. But it is also a necessary event. From the revelation of which players took steroids, how the drugs filtered into the system, and how the executives let it happen, Major League Baseball can finally stop it. And then it can rebuild.

After the strike of 1994/1995, the sport seemed dead. Cal Ripken helped keep it on the map but just as the game was on the brink, home runs brought it back. The country found new heroes in Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa and loved watching them chase Roger Maris. The League was being saved, the money was pouring in, and the owners had no reason to stop it. It was a perfect storm. And in an era defined by home runs (see the great Chicks Dig the Longball commercial here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ltD21rYWVw), fans were given no shortage of power.

But even from that historic 1998 season, we all knew the game was living on borrowed time. Sooner or later, we knew, the shine would come off the apple and someone would look into this whole steroid business and tell us what was really going on. Fast forward almost a decade. Maris's record has been broken and broken again. Hank Aaron has fallen. Four future Hall of Famers were dragged in front of Congress. The Home Run King has been indicted and faces jail time. For years, we have waited for the other shoe to drop and tomorrow, George Mitchell will slam it down.

Baseball will survive the Mitchell Report. It will survive just as it survived integration, the strike, and every other event people said would end it. Baseball's roots are America's roots and it will take more than some pills and needles to uproot our national pasttime. Tomorrow won't be pretty. But on December 14th a new day will dawn, and baseball can begin to recover from its long battle with steroids.