Our long national nightmare isn't close to being over

Commissioner Bud Selig plans to review the actions of every player involved on a case-by-case basis before imposing punishments. Jonathan Fickies/Getty Images

Mitchell Report   The Report Download the complete Mitchell Report Clemens | Pettitte | Tejada | Bonds From SI Tim Layden: Apologies ring hollow Jon Heyman: Mitchell Report's big losers Jon Wertheim: Q&A with Sen. Mitchell Ted Keith: Legal experts sound off Tom Verducci: Mitchell Report aftermath Jon Heyman: Mitchell accomplished a lot Jon Heyman: Selig favors ind. testing Jon Heyman: Ex-client defends McNamee John Donovan: Steroids saga isn't over Phil Taylor: Report exposes more liars Jon Wertheim: More names will surface Michael McCann: Next step for players Survey: Your take on the Mitchell Report Gallery: Mitchell Report Confessions Gallery: Mitchell Report -- The Evidence SI Flashback: Inside the steroid sting SI Flashback: Rocket Science | 300 Wins SI Flashback: Confessions of an MVP Jon Heyman: Interview with McNamee From the Wires Clemens says he did not do steroids, HGH Roberts admits to using steroids in '03 Congress calls two hearings for January Bunning: Accused should get hearings Donnelly denies Mitchell Report claims O's release statement on Mitchell Report A-Rod discusses Report on 60 Minutes Pettitte admits to using HGH in 2002 President Bush: Don't jump to conclusions Clemens, Pettitte, Tejada named in report From The Dan Patrick Show Rep. Tom Davis on Clemens (mp3) Rep. Tom Davis on McGwire (mp3) Jose Canseco defends Clemens (mp3) John Smoltz on the Mitchell Report (mp3) Smoltz says damage irreversible (mp3) Smoltz on why he didn't cheat (mp3)

At this point, now that George Mitchell has finished administering baseball's public and self-appointed flagellation, the easy thing for Bud Selig to do would be to head back to his office, lick his wounds and look forward to making more gobs of money next season. Discipline the drug cheats named in Mitchell's voluminous report? Drag out this thing more? What good would that do? Can't we all just move along already?

Except, in baseball, and especially in baseball's Steroids Era, nothing works like that. Nothing is that easy. As much as Selig might like to shove all those names that appeared in Mitchell's report aside and simply forget about it -- hey, wouldn't we all? -- he can't. And we can't allow him to do that.

So hold on. This long national nightmare in our national pastime is not even close to being over yet. Nobody's moving anywhere. Not until Selig, going against the advice of Mitchell, has his chance to come down hard on those cheats named in the report.

The way the commissioner sounded Thursday, he can't wait to get at 'em.

"Discipline of players and others identified in this report will be determined on a case-by-case basis," Selig told a room full of reporters in New York on Thursday afternoon, a couple of hours after Mitchell's 409-page document was made public. "If warranted, those decisions will be made swiftly."

Suspending players and fining them is touchy stuff, of course. It always is. Anything that pits owners and management against players and their union is never going to go down easily. And when you throw in the fact that, in a lot of people's eyes, some of the "evidence" against the players named in Mitchell's report is hearsay, circumstantial or just plain insubstantial, things could get especially hairy.

Still, if this whole exercise is to mean anything, if all the tough talk about cracking down on performance-enhancing drugs in the game is going to be anything more than talk, Selig not only has to look at who needs punishing, he needs to punish. Union be damned.

The lesson here should be that those who cheat by breaking the law pay the price, not that they skate just because we want to get this whole thing over with.

Selig won't be able to suspend everyone in the report. A lot of the examples of drug abuse cited by Mitchell came before drug testing began, and therefore can't be punished. Mitchell likely won't be able to get to the big fish caught in his investigation, Roger Clemens, either. Selig holds no sway over retired players, and if this report doesn't send the Rocket into a permanent retirement -- he was probably heading that way, anyway -- nothing will.

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