[Sometimes its better to devote an entire post to a subject. Other times a line or two is all it takes. In those cases, its time for the cross legged mutant]

There’s so many random thoughts running through my head right now with this MItchell report, like what does this mean? Who are the biggest names? What does this mean for the A’s? Where do babies come from? So many questions, so little time, so I figured I could do this Cross Legged Mutant style with a post consisting of random thoughts.

Yea. The Mitchell report is out and am I the only one completely disappointed? I was expecting a few more significant names than the likes of Chad Allen, Chris Donnels, Mike Judd, Hal Morris - and my personal favorite - Tim Laker who was drafted 19 years ago and amassed 11 major league home runs. The only thing this report did for me was to reinforce my thinking that the vast majority of guys taking steroids and HGH are guys who are doing so with their backs against the wall; it is understandable why a guy might “cheat” to get an edge to try and just keep their career afloat.

The other category of course being complete d-bags (which by the way I am starting to think would be a great nickname for the for the Long Beach State baseball team in the mold of the D-Backs and D-Rays). Where was I, oh yea, d-bags. Like Bonds and Clemens who could have easily retired as Hall of Fame players in their positions and been revered by fans as two of the greatest to play the game in their positions. Instead they decided that they needed to be the best at their position and that this was a means to an end. That’s where I draw the line, and despite a lot of people barking about how this report lessens the impact of Bonds’ wrongdoing, I think it makes it worse because you don’t really see any other players of the caliber of Clemens and Bonds on that list.

Speaking of d-bags, this is total speculation, but is it possible - and I know I’m playing the race card a bit - that Roger Clemens was a target, meant to be the “white” Barry Bonds as he is being referred to by columnists all over the place today? Maybe not, but one implication of Roger Clemens being named in this report is that those claiming that Barry was targeting because of the color of his skin, have less of an argument if we go after Roger in much the same way. I’m a big believer that Bud Selig wants this legacy off his back and on someone else’s; targeting Roger Clemens might be the momentum he needs to finally shift the public focus off of him for good.

Maybe the most disappointing for me was the amount of current and former Oakland A’s listed in this report. Jason Giambi, Jeremy Giambi, Jose Canseco, Miguel Tejada, Jose Guillen, David Justice, Randy Velarde, F.P. Santangelo, Adam Piatt, Cody McKay. It would seem from this info, to piece it together, that in the years between 2000-2003 for all I know half the team was on the juice and steroids/ HGH probably led to two MVP awards to guys on this list (Jason Giambi in 2000 and Miguel Tejada in 2002). Part of me wonders if management really knew what was going on and that’s one of the main reasons they put up such little fight to keep two MVP’s from leaving in free agency. The guy who really has me bummed is Jack Cust. I have to assume that he is clean now because of testing, but still, its hard to have the same opinion of him now.

I do have to ask, what happens with Miguel Tejada and Eric Gagne. Can the ‘Stros back out of the trade? Will the Brewers try to get out of having both their 8th inning guy (Derrick Turnbow) and 9th inning guy (Eric Gagne) on this list? If I was any team wanting to reconsider a contract, now would be the time to do so, because they may have enough of an out clause to negate a deal. Because of this, the biggest potential outcome of the Mitchell report could be: the Johan Santana to the Yankees trade might finally be a done deal. Why? Well, rumor has it that GM Brian Cashman used Pettite’s expensive contract as a reason why the Yanks couldn’t afford Johan. Well, now Steinbrenner has his out with Pettite, so I would assume that means that it’s game on with the trade talks and Cashman is going to have to find another excuse to not trade Phil Hughes and company.

So is this a good thing, or a bad thing for baseball? Just my opinion, but to me, for baseball’s image, this was absolutely terrific. Any fans out there expecting to see a list of perennial All-Stars was probably somewhat disappointed. MLB definitely got their monies worth, because if nothing else, this report takes conjecture and speculation out of the mix for a little while and we can focus our wrath on a few selected players. Not only that, but we can fully condemn Barry Bonds and now Barry and Roger Clemens become the two biggest villains in the “steroid-era” of baseball - not Bud Selig as I mentioned earlier. Bud and the owners - who by the way just so happened to have footed the bill on this report - are by far the biggest winners. How is it that a full-report meant to clean up the game of baseball only cost the entire league the same the Yankess will pay one player? That’s not really commitment, that’s smoke and mirrors. Sorry, but I’m just not sold that this was the best effort MLB and its owner could make. Hell, at $20 million that’s not even $1 million per team. To put that into perspective, the contract Roger Clemens singed with the Yankees last year - and of course Roger is one of the main characters in Mitchell’s report - was $28 million. Them’s some messed up priorities if you ask me.

By the way, if you want to, take a gander at the report (I’ve got it for you here). A lot of the evidence seems to be word of mouth; which for the most part probably wouldn’t stand up in court. I’ve still got a lot of pages ahead of me, but there looks like there could be plenty of loopholes for players to get their way out of this report, and if one gets out, the rest come tumbling down. One thing is clear though, is it too much to ask for a few metaphors and whatnot? Me thinks someone needs to take a creative writing class or two.

Anyway, this might have been the worst use of $20 million since I spent all that lottery money on a 50 foot statue of myself made entirely out of ice cream…