More thoughts on the Mitchell Report

By Rick Morris

^ It was pretty funny to see George W. Bush accepting the Mitchell Report pretty much without reservation -- not because of Dubya's former ownership of the Texas Rangers -- but because George Mitchell more than any other one man pretty much ran George H.W. Bush out of office. An insanely committed partisan, Mitchell constantly ran rings around the naive first President Bush, who was bipartisan to an extreme fault. Mitchell convinced Bush Senior to break the "no new taxes" pledge during budget negotiations, then used the capitulation as a battering ram to send the old man back to Maine in November of '92. So there was a lot of history between Mitchell and the Bush family that went unnoticed this week.

^ The idea of a "Rogues' Wing" at the Baseball Hall of Fame appears to be an idea whose time has come. Excluding Pete Rose, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and many others for their misdeeds seems a bit over the top inasmuch as we are likely to eventually find that a great many players transgressed against the game at one time or another. Put the players in a separate "shamed" part of the Hall of Fame and retroactively move Ty Cobb (for the scores of his antisocial acts), Cap Anson (for bearing such great responsibility for enforcing the "color line" in baseball), Gaylord Perry (proud admitted cheater) and other jerks and miscreants to this area. Problem solved.

^ The notion that the period from about 1994-2001 (give or take a bit on either end) is unique in the history of baseball -- with these numbers sticking out like a sore thumb in terms of the all-time record -- is historically illiterate. This period of time is much like the 1930s, the days of Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons and the Phabulous Philadelphia As in terms of the offensive explosion. The game has also gone through periods of extreme pitching dominance. The superlative 1968 season for Bob Gibson and for pitchers as a whole helped to bring about the lowering of the pitchers' mound for the 1969 season and a period in baseball with more balance between pitching and offense. In short, something like "500 home runs" has never meant exactly the same thing in every era. Now, this is not to minimize the effects of PED cheating, merely to point out that the damage done to the game in this respect is not irreversible. We must simply view the numbers of this era through a different prism than for previous times in terms of ascertaining how players fit into the all-time history of the game.

^ Whatever else can be said about the failings of the Mitchell Report and Major League Baseball's handling of it (reliance on informants working for the federal government, acceptance of information with differing standards of accuracy), Major League Baseball is to be commended on a huge scale for embracing the need to thoroughly cover the story on their own website. We saw the opposite end of the spectrum recently, when we felt it necessary to chastise the NBA for initially squelching all mention on their website of the civil verdict against Isiah Thomas and the New York Knicks, and so our appreciation for MLB.com's coverage (including a blog completely devoted to all aspects of the story) is sincere.

World Series recap and a look ahead

By Rick Morris

As a sworn enemy of the Red Sox "nation," I take no pleasure whatsoever about my forecast of their World Series victory coming true. The difference in the strength of the two leagues alone made that a foregone conclusion. Not in my lifetime (and I'm in my thirties) has the disparity between the American and National League been as stark as it is right now. FDH Lounge Dignitary Nathan Noy told me that he heard somebody cracking that the Rockies had advanced to the World Series by winning the NIT bracket. Sad but true, and it points out the opportunities present for more than half the teams in the NL to advance to the Series next year with just a few upgrades. Winning once they get there, though, will be problematic to say the least.

To use the gambling parlance for a moment, Boston is certainly the "chalk" for the 2008 world championship as well. Ellsbury, Pedroia and Youkilis still have a long ways to go to reach their ceilings and there's a ton of fine young arms in the rotation and pen, making Curt Schilling expendable. Surely they won't let money get in the way of resigning Mike Lowell if they want him back. ManRam and Big Papi probably have less prime years left than most folks think (Ortiz in particular seems a fine candidate to become the next Mo Vaughn with a steep falloff thanks to matters of conditioning, although my best guess for that is no sooner than three years away), but ownership will continue to augment their excellent core with marquee free agents. Oh, and Josh Beckett is the best postseason pitcher going right now and arguably the best since Bob Gibson. So it's almost inconceivable that any other team could make enough moves to keep Boston from being a consensus pick to repeat next year.