In what could be one of the most oddly timed news stories in recent history, it’s looking like the supposedly very damning Mitchell Report — a.k.a. Senator George Mitchell’s probe into the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball — is going to be released sometime during the two weeks before this Christmas.

It is anticipated that the report will name names of current and former major league players who have used performance-enhancing substances including anabolic steroids and human growth hormone.

“The names of players will come out that people will be mad about,” Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno said of the report last week, according to the Los Angeles Times. “Some of my information is secondhand, but I know there’s going to be names.”

The steroid/HGH issue is a complicated one, for me at least. I have trouble leaning in any single direction. But I can point out two good books on the subject. Game of Shadows is a great read about Barry Bonds and BALCO. But for a more even-handed and comprehensive look at the subject, I can’t recommend highly enough Juicing the Game. It’s lengthy and can be slow in parts, but it has one of the finest profiles of Bonds I’ve ever read, and most surprisingly, it works best as a sharp, insightful history of professional baseball from the late 80s through the early 2000s.

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