The Mitchell report came out yesterday and although there were some surprises the report served as a document to end speculation on some and stir it upon others.

We are now part of a generation in baseball where the best pitcher in Roger Clemens, and the best hitter - Barry Bonds both cheated. This isn’t something that is immune to other sports, but baseball has become the poster child, and it is time for action.

It is hard to watch anyone in any sport having success, when in the back of your mind you wonder if it is real. Let me preface what I’m about to say with the fact I have no knowledge of such, but take for example the way Michael Jordan’s body in his early years and then look at him in his prime. It seemed like his body changed quite significantly. What a blow to basketball it would be if at some point in the future we learned that His Airness was not what we thought he was.

Take a look at the size of NBA players and NFL players. Is that from weight-lifting? And if we make our NFL picks and NBA picks based on these players, how do we know if our bets are indeed fair?

So what do we do about it?

The Player’s Associations are strong, but the public is outraged right now, so it is time to strike while you have the hammer.

Bud Selig has been a good commissioner in baseball financially, but a failure otherwise, because he is owner-oriented and weak. Forget about 50-game suspensions, it does nothing to stop the problem. It’s time to make a radical change, before the public treats sports figures like pro wrestling characters, and it becomes a farce, by skilled drug-enhanced professionals.

The only cure that would put an end to this madness in all sports is a zero-tolerance policy. That means anyone that tests positive is banned for life, and any statistics or records they achieved are wiped clean. If they test positive, their contract is immediately voided, and any money they earned within the season they tested positive is fair game for owners to reclaim. I think if you asked Joe Public which is worse, a player that breaks records and poises himself Hall of Fame ready upon retirement that is falsely getting paid 100’s of millions of dollars for cheating, or Pete Rose making MLB picks to bet on baseball, the answer would be easy to guess.

The difference is that one is banned for life, and the other is allowed to continue with three chances to fail before he is banned.

Aren’t they taking money from false pretenses as well? Aren’t they making more players use, because if they don’t, then the players feel that they can’t compete on the same level? Pete Rose affected himself with his wrongdoing, players using drugs effect everyone in the game and all the fans watching the games and supporting the teams.

Maybe the fans should gather and file a class-action suit for false entertainment and get refunds for any tickets purchased to watch a game played by cheaters that were allowed to perform, even as owners, trainers and coaches all knew what was going on. But I guess that opens a whole other matter.

Who are the real cheaters? The owners are not blameless, but they can fix it, and now is the time.