[EmpireWF]

ESPN.com's Howard Bryant has an excellent article on the pre-release fervor and the dissensions among baseball people on the whole process. It's thorough in the concerns of baseball executives and team officials.

ESPN - Friction and fractures erode faith in Mitchell's investigation - MLB

"Club executives are nervous that Mitchell will be unsparing in his assessment of their role in enabling the game's steroid culture, while team trainers and strength coaches feel the Mitchell team explicitly pressured them to "guess" about steroid use by specific players. The aim, say trainers and strength coaches, was to produce a report heavy on high-profile names but low on solutions."

"...dozens of employees from nearly half of the 30 major league teams interviewed by ESPN.com said they found themselves conflicted at the end of the process. Many said they originally believed in the necessity of an investigation. Indeed, a number of team employees said they have been frustrated for years that their concerns regarding performance-enhancing drugs were ignored, and expressed enthusiasm that the game's leadership at last seemed to be taking the issue seriously. But because of problems they believe have severely undermined the investigation, a number of sources inside baseball said they are now less optimistic."

"Mitchell faced a major obstacle from the start: He had no subpoena power or other leverage to compel players to participate. The MLB Players Association, led by Donald Fehr and Gene Orza, said it never ordered or even suggested that its players not cooperate; but of the 750 players in the major leagues, none has been identified as having spoken voluntarily to Mitchell's investigators. It is unknown if any players broke ranks and privately spoke with Mitchell."

"Short on access and information, Mitchell's investigators aggressively pressured team trainers, managers and strength coaches to speculate about players and their possible use of performance-enhancing drugs."

"The teams' general managers, too, felt pressured by questions that led them to believe the Mitchell report will judge them harshly for condoning widespread drug use by not bringing it to the attention of club owners and baseball's central office. That, they acquiesced, is an unfortunate but real byproduct of the enormous demands placed on player evaluators to win games in a billion-dollar business."


Basically, the trainers and GMs feel they may be blamed for the steroid era while the players and owners are protected.

Check out the full article when you get a chance.

[azrael492]

This is a lot of attention for a report that people thought was just a show by the commissioner. He must have dug up some dirt nobody wants public.