Buster Olney: Mitchell's report to name names

Michael, I was imagining a lot of it is going to piggyback off the Albany investigation and the other investigations done by the Feds--my understanding is that they have a lot of info that hasn't been released to the public. The report can merely say that Federal investigators uncovered a paper trail suggesting that "Fred's Internet Pharmacy shipped HGH to Joe Slugger in April, 2005. Conclude what you want from it." Also, I'm sure that if your name is in there, your first instinct is going to be to sue, but these are lawyers running Mitchell's investigation, and you have to assume they are not going to name people haphazardly.Lawyers are going to be concerned about being sued and losing. So if they name someone, you have to believe they have something very compelling. And any player who is dead to rights is going to protest his innocence and threaten to sue, but he'd be an idiot to actually sue. The last thing anyone should want is to perjure themselves under oath and to open up a can of worms in which stuff that makes them look guilty gets paraded into a court room.

 

You might be right. I am not a legal expert, so take this for what it's worth.

I don't see the conflict... The Federal investigators have been pretty clear about this since the early 90s, when they first started launching steroid investigations. They are going after suppliers, not individual users. They had names of MLB players that they allegedly went to MLB with in the early to mid 90s. MLB didn't do anything. And the Federal investigators didn't do anything. They don't have the resources to go after individual users and they have focused their resources on the suppliers. The Federal investigators could have cooperated with Mitchell's investigation if they so chose, and still have fulfilled that mandate. They sent the Balco guys to prison. They sent Kirk Radomski to prison. They have had the licenses of various doctors revoked and they are in the process of trying to convict the proprietors of various internet pharmacies. They are not going to try to convict individual players they know used, even though they have plenty of evidence that those players used. They don't have the resources to bring those nickel and dime cases. So what is wrong with them continuing to bring cases against suppliers--which is what they have been doing--AND cooperating with Mitchell's investigation? From their perspective, it would seem like a no-brainer. Since the Feds are only targeting suppliers, the only time names of actual users come out is when the users are witnesses or are related to evidence that is material to an actual case that gets brought. That allows many players they know about to skate free. By cooperating with Mitchell, it gets those names out there without them having to bring indictments that they don't have the resources to prosecute.