In this March 30, 2006 file photo, former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, left, is joined by... 
(AP)
Headlines about steroids are down, and so are home runs. One year later, the stigma of the Mitchell Report has worn off for most players and baseball is convinced it has moved on. But has there been a permanent change, with less reliance on big boppers and greater focus on small ball, the kind played by the AL champion Tampa Bay Rays?
"I think it definitely has something to do with it," said former 20-game winner Dave Stewart, now a player agent.
Released last Dec. 13, the 409-page report on drugs in baseball by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell cited seven MVPs, 31 All-Stars and about 85 players to differing degrees.
Baseball commissioner Bud Selig accepted Mitchell's recommendation not to discipline players for past transgressions. Among the current and former stars, only the cases of Barry Bonds Roger Clemens still pop up in the news — primarily because they maintain their innocence and their cases linger in the federal courts.
"How it turns out for each individual is a consequence of what their response was," Mitchell said in an interview last month.
It may be too early to determine whether the Mitchell Report changed the sport.
Home runs per game peaked at 2.34 in 2000. Now, they have declined for the third consecutive season and were down to 2.01, the lowest level since 1993. Is the shift related to the Mitchell Report and increased drug testing?
Mitchell thought it was too early to "make sweeping judgments of that type."
"I don't know the answer to that question and I will wait to see what happens," he said.
In baseball, team executives and agents always are tying to discern trends from statistics. Whether greater testing and fewer home runs are linked is a hot topic.
"Like almost everything in the sport, there are multiple reasons for things, and I would think that that might be one of them," Baltimore Orioles president Andy MacPhail said. "You can't draw all these broad conclusions based on one year's of data. But it's started, so let's see how it goes."
