This Day in Sports: Steroid Users Identified in MLB Report

In the late 90's and early 2000's Major League Baseball had a big problem that they had tried to sweep under the rug for many years with rapid steroid use. While the league was going through a down time and needed a jolt it was the home run race between Mark Mcgwire and Sammy Sosa in 1998 that provided that needed jolt.

In that case, Major League Baseball had turned the other cheek to steroid use. They didn't want to see what was going on behind the scenes that allowed, not only Mcgwire and Sosa but a lot of players to have uncharacteristically career seasons. What they needed at that time was for some excitement in baseball and how does the old saying go, chicks dig the long ball? Yeah, although I think it should read, everyone digs the long ball.

However, as the mid 2000's came along there was a bunch of push back from the public to clean up the game. Therefore, MLB Commissioner at the time, Bud Selig hired former Democratic United States Senator from Maine, George J. Mitchell, to conduct an investigation as to who was using performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) in Major League Baseball.

The report more famously known as the "Mitchell Report" lasted 20 months, was released on this date in 2007 and was a hefty 409 pages worth of findings. All in all, upwards of 87 players were named through Mitchell's investigations, although there are allegations that many more players had been involved over the years.

The major players that were named in the report were, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, Andy Pettitte, and Gary Sheffield.

Major League baseball has really cleaned up the game over this ten year span. Stricter guidelines, more banned substances, additional testing, and a solid punishment policy.

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