The Mitchell Report has been released and it lists numerous baseball players who allegedly used performance-enhancing substances in the past 15 years. No current Dodgers are named, but several former Dodgers are, including Kevin Brown, Eric Gagne, and Paul Lo Duca. The only current Angel named is Gary Matthews, Jr., and former Angels include Troy Glaus, Mo Vaughn, and Brendan Donnelly.

Of course, there are several big names discussed in the report, including Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, and Miguel Tejada.

Personally, I don't think this report offers closure. I think there is still a lot of information that will be coming out on steroids and HGH in the months and years ahead. It will be interesting to see how all of the players named in this report react to these allegations. In some cases, Mitchell has copies of checks to known dealers, or shipment forms addressed to players. It would not surprise me if more names surfaced in the future.

It's clear that baseball handled this problem poorly in the 1990s and 2000s. The question now is what's next. And should some of these top players be admitted to the Hall of Fame. I believe that Hall of Fame in Cooperstown needs to get together with Commissioner Bud Selig and immediately place a moratorium on voting in every player named in the report. I'd then recommend that they establish a panel for how best to deal with the potential election of these players. The panel probably should not make a recommendation on numerous players for several years, when they have had the benefit of time to properly reflect back on the "steroid era."

As for what's next, I think Mitchell outlines a series of excellent recommendations that MLB should adopt. I do believe that this report will help reduce steroid and HGH use, but I also think that performance-enhancing drug use was on the decline anyways in baseball, after the recent congressional hearings and the new testing plans. No matter how one looks at this, today is a dark day for baseball. But it's a day that we were going to have to get past in order to move forward.