And of course, the biggest liar of them all is the commissioner who promises to punish the liars and drug cheats, but never tells us what he should do about the man who oversaw the entire steroid era in baseball and turned a convenient blind eye to it all.

Bud Selig has his fingerprints all over this crime.

"Everyone involved in baseball over the past two decades — commissioners, club officials, the players' association and players — shares to some extent the responsibility for the steroids era," the report said. "There was a collective failure to recognize the problem as it emerged and to deal with it early on."

Even more damning was this revealing conclusion by Mitchell:

"The onset of mandatory random drug testing, the single most important step taken so far to combat the problem, was delayed for years by the opposition of the players' association. However, there is validity to the assertion by the players' association that, prior to 2002, the owners did not push hard for mandatory random drug testing because they were much more concerned about the serious economic issues facing baseball."

The owners — and by extension, their pseudo-owner/compliant commissioner — were flat-out accused in the report of choosing money over cleaning up the sport? Well, gasp and swoon. Who could have expected that?

The report substantiated that for more than two decades, there was a serious lack of institutional control over the sport as its performance-enhancing drug culture began to spread throughout the major- and minor-league system. You could read pages and pages of examples of how easily drug cheats could slip through the cracks. Players were given advanced notice of looming drug tests. Clubhouses became underground pharmacies, and everyone at every level of the game pretended they couldn't see the giant elephant in the middle of the room.

In 1994, Selig and the owners decided that the concept of drug testing, although clearly worthwhile, was nothing more than a bargaining chip in contentious collective-bargaining talks with the players' association.

Yet there was Selig at his press conference, talking once again full of this tough talk about going after all the bad men who were ruining his game. But he never once mentioned what he should do to the man who rode shotgun on the steroids era, himself.

In another culture, they have ways of dealing with "leaders" like Selig. You put a sharp sword on the table and walk out the door. And just before you get out the door, you look back at the failed leader and say without a hint of emotion, "I'm sure you'll do the right thing."

That's what someone needs to say to Selig now that we've seen all the details of the Mitchell Report.

Do the right thing, Bud.

Resign.

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