by Lindberg Woodhouse

Created on: December 16, 2007   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

Four years after San Francisco Chronicle journalists Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada broke the BALCO story, we finally have the Mitchell Report to tell us what we already knew. To me this does not change anything. The credibility of baseball is as it was before December 13, 2007. Believe it or not, baseball is not a religion, or symbol of the integrity and continuity of the American Spirit. It is an entertainment corporation that is in the business to make money, and that has been the case since Ruth, Maris, Aaron, and the others have made their living providing the American people with entertainment. Furthermore, the decision not to test the athletes for performance-enhancing drugs before the 2005 season was made in the interest of making money.

Lets turn back to clock to 1994. Remember the state of baseball after the World Series was canceled due to the strike? I do. It was pitiful. This "game of integrity" was halted due to millionaires bickering with millionaires about how they would make their millions. Because of greed on both sides, Americans were without Fall Classic for the first time since 1904.

Looking forward to the 1995 season, fans were angry. Fans abandoned the game. The MLB posted an attendance of 20 million less fans than in 1993. The attendance of 1993 was not equaled again until 1998. Coincidentally, this was the year of the record-breaking home run chase between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.

If baseball fans will look in their heart of hearts, they will say that they knew something was fishy. Nobody had hit 61 since '61, and now two men were able to do it in the same year. You can make all the excuses you want about a "juiced ball", maple bats, or improved training, but we all knew something was happening.

Before 1995, 18 sluggers were able to put together 50-plus homerun seasons in the history of baseball. Since that time there has been 22. Those numbers tell the story that has not been admitted by MLB until December 2007. It's not like they didn't know, it's just that they didn't care, until the story was propelled into the national spotlight by the BALCO scandal in 2003.

If anybody in MLB front offices cared about the integrity of the hallowed records, they would have at least been testing their players since doping became an issue in American sports. But that didn't happen. Even seeing the NFL's banned substance policy put into place in 1987 and controversy of of Ben Johnson's Gold Medal in 1988 did not sway the MLB or the Player's Association.

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