Welcome to Saturday Scorecard, where Diet Mountain Dew and crullers are considered "performance enhancers" and we'll spend most of our day trying to figure out how Hannah Montana tickets can be more coveted than those for Bruce Springsteen, a home playoff game at Lambeau and The Masters.

These are interesting times. On to the notes...

By George: Thanks to George Mitchell and his 409-page opus, the usually enjoyable, thrilling and humbling privilege of filling out a Hall of Fame ballot has taken on a new dimension.

The notion of "innocent until proven guilty," a core principal of the American judicial system, has been turned upside down in the baseball world. Fair or not, when considering the accomplishments of players in the "steroid era," one almost has to adopt a skeptical stance and assume guilt.

When Mark McGwire first appeared on the Hall of Fame ballot last year, friend and colleague Buster Olney from ESPN advocated an "all or nothing" or, more specifically, an "everyone or no one" approach to the voting process.

Olney said that since it was impossible to determine who did what and when, the only logical stance was to consider players' accomplishments in the context of the era and vote accordingly or eliminate them from consideration.

Buster took a fair amount of heat for his viewpoint at the time, but it now seems visionary. As shocking as it was to see Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte and Miguel Tejada on Mitchell's report, when you consider that the bulk of the evidence was provided by one former clubhouse guy and one ex-trainer, you can assume that dozens, if not hundreds, of other players who cheated were not exposed because their suppliers haven't been caught.

The report would have had far less impact, but you wonder if Mitchell would have been better served to leave out the names.

With little cooperation from players and no aid from subpoenas or search warrants, Mitchell did the best that he could. He didn't bring closure to the issue, but that was pretty much impossible given the scope of the situation. While Bud Selig deliberates about possible penalties, Hall of Fame voters have to decide whether McGwire, Barry Bonds, Clemens and their steroid-stained contemporaries are worthy of enshrinement.

It's not going to be easy.

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