‘Twas the night before the Mitchell Report, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The needles were trashed by the attendants with care,
In knowing that St. Mitchell soon would be there;
The players were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of suspensions danced in their heads;
And Selig in his cheap suit and Fehr in his pleats,
Had just settled down from a long winter’s meets,
When out on the field there arose such a clatter,
Selig sprang from his office to see what was the matter.
Away to the window he flew like a flash,
Tore open the mini-blinds and threw up in the trash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to his wondering eyes should meet,
But a bald headed man, and eight tiny athletes,
With a little old body, but so lively and fickle,
He knew in a moment it must be St. Mitchell.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
“Now, Bonds! now, Gullien! now, Sosa and Clemens!
On, Tejada! on Giambi! on, Ankiel and Leyritz!
To the top of the ballpark! to Capitol Hill on the Mall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”
As dry heaves follow Selig’s regurgitated pie,
When they meet with the press, and pray to the sky,
So up to the press-room the coursers they flew,
With a town car full of needles, indictments, Mitchell too.
And then, in a twinkling, Selig heard on the tube
The hemming and hawing of each ball playing dude.
As he drew in his hand, and was turning around,
Down the hall St. Mitchell came with a bound.
He was dressed all in black, in his hand was a book,
And the book told the tales of many a crook;
A bundle of pages he said told the truth,
Of a number of players whom he was sent to sleuth.
His eyes — black like a hole! his glasses how boring!
His jowls like chicken theighs, his nose caused him snoring!
His sour little mouth was drawn down like a loon,
And the skin of his chin was as wrinkled as a prune;
The specter of a steroids he held tight in his grip,
And the terror it gave caused a many tear drip ;
He had a tiny face and a little bic pen,
That pointed when he spoke again and again.
He was lean and thin, a right miserable old elf,
And Selig cowered when he saw him, in spite of himself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave Selig to know he had everything to dread;
He spoke many a word, and told of his works,
And filled all the public, with stories of jerks;
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, out the press room he rose;
He sprang to his Lincoln Town Car, to the players gave a bow,
And to their agents they all ran with many a furrowed brow.
But Selig heard him exclaim, as he drove out of sight,
“Happy Mitchell Report to all, and to all a good-night.”
Inspiration for this story was this post by the 800lb Gorilla. Their title made me do this.
UPDATE: The gals at Babes Love Baseball have their own take they put up after the report came out. Its quite good, I’d recommend reading it.
This is almost a half hour of footage of Barry Bonds taking on a Japanese comedian for some Japanese television show. You get to see some of Barry at his bulked up best, cranking balls left and right out of a small ballpark in California, beating the crap out of his opponent in a live action Baseball Board Game.
