A letter to Rob Parker of ESPN I've always enjoyed your work as a sportswriter. Your arguments on ESPN First Take have been awesome all year. With that being said, I find your comments regarding steroids in baseball and the Mitchell Report to be disappointing, misinformed, irrational, and disturbing. It bothers me that ESPN has chosen you as a spokesperson on this topic and that you have been entrusted with a Hall of Fame vote for baseball. I hope you'll take the time to read some of the reasons why I respectfully disagree with several of the arguments you've made about this issue. You believe that the list of names contained in the Mitchell Report is invalid. Two reasons you've given to support this claim are the fact that the list is A: incomplete and B: unsubstantiated by positive test results. The first point doesn't make sense and the second one is just ignorant. I don't understand why the players listed in the report should be considered innocent or let off the hook because of the fact that not every guilty player has been named. Why not? I don't follow this argument at all. The report does not claim that the list is complete, and for the sake of baseball I hope names will continue to be added to it. Should Tim Donaghy get his job back because of the chance that other refs in the NBA might be crooked? Should Mike Vick be released because there are still dogfighting rings in America? You don't need to catch every criminal who commits a given crime in order to punish one of them. If the goal is to clean up the game (which it should be) or to draw into question those who illegally achieved an unfair advantage (which it should be), then any reasonable allegation regarding a player who may have cheated should be taken seriously. Another reason you claim that this list is invalid is because there are no positive test results to corroborate any of the accusations. You say that because there isn't 100% proof that these athletes cheated in the form of positive test results, then they should be given the benefit of the doubt by the fans and Hall of Fame voters. The reason that there are no test results included in the Mitchell Report, which you MUST know, is because the Joint Drug Agreement and collective bargaining agreement between the players association and MLB prevents this information from being made public. You say that you need to see test results, yet it is common knowledge that MLB read the report before it was released to make sure this information was left out. Waiting to see old positive test results before you're willing to believe any specific athlete cheated doesn't make sense because it will never happen. Does this mean that nobody ever cheated? Does this mean that any player about whom we can gather a massive pile of convincing, yet circumstantial evidence is innocent? I do not believe it does at all. To me this seems like the complete opposite approach that the media takes with just about any other issue. We certainly have no proof that Les Miles is going to coach at Michigan next year, yet the media will have no problem distracting LSU for the rest of their season by speculating that he will for the next month. At the same time, Barry and Roger's heads are both twice the size that they once were. They both experienced unprecedented boosts in performance late in their careers at the same time that convincing evidence and allegations claim that their steroid abuse began. Barry's trainer went to jail rather than discussing whether or not Barry used steroids under oath. Why is that not worth considering? The fact that you are so reluctant to question these athletes is particularly disturbing to me in light of the fact that you are a Hall of Fame voter. You say that you are not going to consider any steroid allegations against any player when considering him for the Hall of Fame. This bothers me a great deal. You say that you are just going to look at the numbers and vote based on that. Was Sammy Sosa better than Frank Robinson? Was Raffy really better than Reggie, Schmidt, and Mickey? The numbers say they may have been. The Hall of Fame is supposed to be exclusive. It is supposed to be hard to get into. To get inducted you should have to play for a long time, play well, play hard, and in my opinion play honest. A player inducted in the Hall of Fame should have set a good example for the game of baseball when he played it. He should be judged by what he did on the field. If what he did on the field was enhanced by illegal drugs that he took to gain an unfair advantage against his competitors, then that should be taken into account and held against him. I don't believe it's the job of Hall of Fame voters to look for excuses for those who cheated. The point isn't to figure out why a player might be innocent because of some unreasonable doubt in the evidence against him. Nothing states that 100% conclusive proof must be produced against a player for him to lose your vote. It shouldn't be as hard to exclude someone from the Hall of Fame as it is to send him to jail. Obviously the Mitchell Report is not perfect. It is, at best, a flawed attempt to begin to uncover some of what has happened in MLB over the last two decades. No one is saying that the report is complete or that it is conclusive or that it is completely fair. That doesn't mean that it has to be disregarded or that the players listed in it are innocent. The point of all of this is to eliminate steroids from baseball as much as possible. Players shouldn't feel the need to risk their health to gain an unfair advantage by taking illegal drugs. Children who look up to these players shouldn't see cheaters being rewarded. The members of the Hall of Fame shouldn't have their achievements diminished by allowing those who cheated into their elite fraternity. If we really want to eliminate steroids from baseball (which we should) then the way to do it is to test players aggressively and to deter others from cheating by punishing and/or embarrassing those who are caught cheating. If you really believe that the point of it all should be to make money and sell tickets, then I feel sorry for you. I've loved baseball my whole life. As a kid I used to read the baseball encyclopedia and wonder what it would be like to see someone hit 50 home runs in a season... then one year Brady Anderson did it. Thanks for your time. Keep up the good work making Skip look bad and... Let's go Mets! comments