Mitchell Report. Read what it says about amps.

Where did George Mitchell get his pharmacological expertise? Was it in the army? Was it at Georgetown Law? Was it as the assistant to noted biochemical expert Edmund Muskie? As a senator from Maine? As special envoy to Ireland? Was it buddying around with baseball owners?

But it does open up neat stuff though. For example, we can safely say that smoking does not cause any health problems, because the tobacco companies suggested it didn't in the 1940s!

The George Mitchell Report was nothing more than a whitewash PR job for MLB's power structure. As a serious discussion of anything, it ranks lower in the pantheon than Reefer Madness.

Moreover, Mitchell says that a "thorough examination" of players gaining an unfair competitive advantage did not require an investigation of amp use.


Luckily, there's absolutely no reason to give half a #### about anything George Mitchell has to say, has ever said, or will ever say about performance-enhancing drugs. Asking George Mitchell about performance-enhancing drugs has about as much probative value as seeking out a Klan member for analysis of Talmudic law.

Moreover, Mitchell says that a "thorough examination" of players gaining an unfair competitive advantage due to steroid use did not require an investigation of amp use.

Luckily, there's absolutely no reason to give half a #### about anything George Mitchell has to say, has ever said, or will ever say about performance-enhancing drugs.

Maybe, but MLB adopted the report which means, as noted, that the institutional position of MLB is that:

1. Steroids provided players with an "unfair competitive advantage."
2. They did so even before they were tested for by MLB.
3. Amps, while problematic, did not provide players with the same "unfair competitive advantage" as steroids (and perhaps no competitive advantage at all).
4. A thorough study of players obtaining an "unfair competitive advantage" through drug use did not require a consideration of amps.
5. We interpret the history of amp use by our players as long-standing and widespread, but of little to no competitive concern.

Moreover, Mitchell says that a "thorough examination" of players gaining an unfair competitive advantage due to steroid use did not require an investigation of amp use.

Nice try, knew it was coming -- there's no need to explain why you didn't investigate amps if you meant to stress steroid use in that sentence. By definition there's no reason to examine amp use if your writ is merely to examine steroid use.

It's inartfully worded, but its meaning is unambiguous.

Luckily, there's absolutely no reason to give half a #### about anything George Mitchell has to say, has ever said, or will ever say about performance-enhancing drugs.

You're getting all in a snit about something that your current Great Satan # 755 didn't even say in that quoted paragraph. All we know from that quote about what he said about amphetamines is that (a) they're distinct from steroids in some undefined way; and (b) they didn't look any further into it.

Next up: Rand Paul weighs in, with suitable quotes from John Galt, architect, scientist---man.

Beyond the many problems with the Mitchell Report (sorry, Larry Starr, if only we'd had a 312th page, we would have had the space to include your three separate interviews with Mitchell's team that directly implicated the owners and MLB brass, and exploded the timeline in Selig's Congressional testimony), that footnote #19 isn't even slightly an "official institutional conclusion" by MLB that steroids "provided an unfair competitive advantage, and amps didn't."

From Footnote 19:

The allegedly widespread use of amphetamines in baseball, rumored for decades

sounds like an admission that potentially, amps have been widely used over a period of decades. anecdotes from players back this up.

a thorough examination did not require me to look into the additional problems posed by amphetamines use, serious as those problems might be.

sounds like an admission that amps could be a serious problem, so vast that there isn't time to explore it. So according to the Mitchell report, amp use is:

1. Rumored to be widespread
2. Potentially a serious problem
3. Too huge to investigate as part of the Mitchell report

How does this conclusion follow

MLB has concluded institutionally that steroids provided an unfair competitive advantage, and amps didn't.

How does this conclusion follow

MLB has concluded institutionally that steroids provided an unfair competitive advantage, and amps didn't.

It doesn't, except only in SugarBear's and Andy's minds.

Yes, my reading of that excerpt was that although amp use may have been widespread and may have provided an unfair competetive advantage, the answer to those two questions has nothing to do with whether steroid use is/was widespread and if it provides an unfair advantage. Or simply, steroid use can be evaluated objectively without a comparison to other drugs from other eras.

Mitchell was asked to examine the unfair competitive advantage provided by steroid use and did not deem amphetimine use -- widespread and "serious" as it may be -- as germane to that question. Thus, as many of us have said repeatedly, steroid users benefitted from an unfair competitive advantage that amp users didn't. That unfair competitive advantage is the very reason we bemoan steroid use, and don't worry so much about a bunch of guys in the 60s popping Betty Draper Diet Pills -- and of course the reason why treating them differently for HOF purposes is perfectly "logical" and "consistent."

Baseball has adopted that conclusion, by accepting the report as valid, and by not punishing amp use as harshly as roid use. As the report notes elsewhere, amps are and have been treated as more akin to drugs of abuse -- as in, e.g., the 1985 drug testing agreement implemented by Ueberroth -- and merely tangentially, if at all, similar to drugs that provide an "unfair competitive advantage."

How does this conclusion follow

MLB has concluded institutionally that steroids provided an unfair competitive advantage, and amps didn't.

It doesn't, except only in SugarBear's and Andy's minds.

Ray, as usual, you have the reading comprehension of a slug. Here's what I wrote just 3 posts above yours:

All we know from that quote about what [Mitchell] said about amphetamines is that (a) they're distinct from steroids in some undefined way; and (b) [he] didn't look any further into it.

The primary way amps differ from steroids is that they don't provide users an unfair competitive advantage in competing at baseball at the major league level. The report is clear in that regard. It neither says nor implies that amps do, and states explicitly that roids do.

Footnote 19 doesn't merely state that the drugs are different, it states that problems presented by their use in baseball are "distinct."

As Andy noted, the report does not catalog the differences.

The primary way amps differ from steroids is that they don't provide users an unfair competitive advantage in competing at baseball at the major league level. The report is clear in that regard. It neither says nor implies that amps do, and states explicitly that roids do.

Your first and second sentences are expressly contradicted by your third. The report says that steroids provide an unfair advantage and is silent on whether or not amps do. That Mitchell didn't investigate amps is not evidence that amps do not provide an unfair advantage any more than his failure to address Bill Veeck watering the basepaths or John McGraw grabbing on to a baserunner's belt is a determination that the latter are acceptable practice.

edited out a double negative

The report says that steroids provide an unfair advantage and is silent on whether or not amps do.

It's not silent. It says steroids provide an unfair competitive advantage and that amps, whatever else they do, present a problem "distinct" from that. If Mitchell or MLB thought that the problems presented by amps and steroids overlapped, it's easy enough to write that. (*) But they didn't.

That Mitchell didn't investigate amps is not evidence that amps do not provide an unfair advantage any more than his failure to address Bill Veeck watering the basepaths or John McGraw grabbing on to a baserunner's belt is a determination that the latter are acceptable practice.


No, but it's (definitive) evidence that baseball is comfortable with the official historical record saying that amps don't.

(*) Thus, the key sentence in Footnote 19 could read something like, "The allegedly widespread use of amphetamines in baseball, rumored for decades, closely resembles the problem posed by more recent allegations that players have used steroids and other substances with anabolic or similar effects to gain an unfair competitive advantage. ..."

Andy and SBB are reading something into the report that isn't there. It would be interesting to get some other's opinions on it; so far its about 6 or 7 to 2.

The report says that steroids provide an unfair advantage and is silent on whether or not amps do. That Mitchell didn't investigate amps is not evidence that amps do not provide an unfair advantage any more than his failure to address Bill Veeck watering the basepaths or John McGraw grabbing on to a baserunner's belt is a determination that the latter are not improper performance enhancers.

That's true, but when MLB codified its latest drug policy, its penalties for steroids were significantly greater for steroids than for amphetamines. Make what you want of it, but here they are:

First time offense:

Greenies: subject to mandatory evaluation and follow-up testing
Steroids: 50 game suspension

Second offense:
Greenies: 25 game suspension
Steroids: 100 game suspension

Third offense:
Greenies: 80 day suspension
Steroids: Lifetime ban

Fourth offense:
Greenies: "up to" a lifetime ban
Steroids: N/A

Plus there's the widely-used "waiver" process by which a player can pop greenies without penalty. Dozens of players do.

Andy and SBB are reading something into the report that isn't there.

Again, here's what I wrote. and please tell me what I'm "reading into the report".

All we know from that quote about what [Mitchell] said about amphetamines is that (a) they're distinct from steroids in some undefined way; and (b) [he] didn't look any further into it.

Now the penalties for steroids and amps are different, which lends credence to the point about distinctions, but I never said that the Mitchell Report said anything about amphetamines other than what you see above.

SugarBear, you're misreading the text. And you don't need to; the correct reading of the text is not incompatible with maintaining a belief that amphetamines are/were insignificant compared to steroids in potency or clubhouse culture-- or not believing it, for that matter. The sole finding of the footnote is "Amphetamines, yeah, we decided not to get into that." The words say what the words say.

Andy and SBB are reading something into the report that isn't there. It would be interesting to get some other's opinions on it; so far its about 6 or 7 to 2.

The fun thing is that it doesn't actually matter what George Mitchell intended or did not intend to say. There's absolutely no reason to care at all about what George Mitchell said, he cited no science, no real ethics argument, or anything that would give us the least bit of motivation to give a #### about anything in the report. Wow, some players did drugs before baseball cared! Whoop de doo. Maybe he can tackle other Super Important Investigations like checking to see if Jeff Tackett illegally downloads porn or how much cocaine Steven Tyler snorted in 1982.

Why would anyone care if George Mitchell says amphetamines aren't performance-enchancing, or Twizzlers are performance-enhancing, or yogurt is as dangerous as crystal meth? There is zero support for the notion that Mitchell has any sort of expertise or knowledge of the subject and nothing written in the Mitchell Report gives us any additional reason to believe he does.

SugarBear, you're misreading the text. And you don't need to; the correct reading of the text is not incompatible with maintaining a belief that amphetamines are/were insignificant compared to steroids in potency or clubhouse culture-- or not believing it. The sole finding of the footnote is "Amphetamines, yeah, we decided not to get into that." The words say what the words say.

I've been doomed to create and sift through these kind of reports and language for a living and can report that the people that create them know how to express what they mean to express, and if they meant to say that the problems posed by amps overlapped with those posed by roids, they would have said so. And if they wanted to say that amps implicated similar competitive concerns as roids, they could have said that. (And if they'd meant to dilute the problems posed by roid use they could have said something other than "unfair competiive advantage.")

There were drafts upon drafts of this thing prepared, and much redlining of both footnote 19 and the rest of the text.

Nor have I ever suggested that baseball's word is final on the ultimate question -- it could be wrong. But, as of now, baseball believes amps and roids posed "distinct" problems, and that roids offered players an "unfair competitive advantage." (And that players used roids to gain such.) Which bears on the ultimate issue around here -- if the official position of baseball is that the benefits afforded roid and amp users were "distinct," it isn't illegitimate (or, heaven forbid, "logically inconsistent") for HOF voters to treat them differently. A HOF with Henry Aaron, pill popper, but not Mark McGwire, roider, isn't "inconsistent," it's in harmony with the official position of Major League Baseball.

Andy, the problem in invoking the penalties is that the initial penalties negotiated between the PA and MLB for a positive steroid test was precisely the same as for being caught altering a baseball. It was only reaction from those outside the game that led to harsher penalties.

First time offense:

Greenies: subject to mandatory evaluation and follow-up testing
Steroids: 50 game suspension

Second offense:
Greenies: 25 game suspension
Steroids: 100 game suspension

Third offense:
Greenies: 80 day suspension
Steroids: Lifetime ban

Fourth offense:
Greenies: "up to" a lifetime ban
Steroids: N/A

See where it doesn't say: Greenies: no suspension?

At best, this is evidence that the PTB see a difference in degree, not in kind. But not really, because of what Ron said.

SugarBear, you're misreading the text. And you don't need to; the correct reading of the text is not incompatible with maintaining a belief that amphetamines are/were insignificant compared to steroids in potency or clubhouse culture-- or not believing it, for that matter. The sole finding of the footnote is "Amphetamines, yeah, we decided not to get into that." The words say what the words say.

He's also creating the Mark Furhman trial within the OJ trial. Who cares WTF the official unofficial institutional position in MLB is from twisting some obscure footnote in a George Mitchell report? That doesn't change the science, or the players' state of mind in taking the various drugs, or what was against the rules, etc.

Who cares WTF the official unofficial institutional position in MLB is from twisting some obscure footnote in a George Mitchell report?

Because it bears on the legitimacy (or, in your terms, "consistency") of an HOF vote distinguishing roiders and pill poppers. Unless you're suggesting that an approach to the HOF that accords with MLB's official position is somehow illegitimate.

See where it doesn't say: Greenies: no suspension?

At best, this is evidence that the PTB see a difference in degree, not in kind. But not really, because of what Ron said.


The disparate treatment of roiders and pill poppers (don't forget the pill waivers) under current baseball "law" is itself adequate reason to treat roiders and pill poppers differently for HOF purposes. You don't need Footnote 19, or anything else. Baseball has not, and does not, treat roiding and pill popping similarly.

See where it doesn't say: Greenies: no suspension?

Baseball suspends players for greenies.
Baseball suspends players for roids.

See the similarities?