Fernando Vina, Tom Hicks and the Mitchell Report

With each passing day the Mitchell Report is looking more and more suspect in my eyes. It is getting praised for what was included but it should also get severe criticism for what it left out. Let's connect some easy dots here:

- Fernando Vina was named as both a steroids guy and HGH guy in the Mitchell Report. Vina currently works at ESPN and denies the steroids part of the allegation.

- Not six months ago on ESPN Vina blasted Texas Rangers owner Tom Hicks for saying Juan Gonzalez was probably a steroids guy.

- Hicks had very good reason to speculate that Gonzalez was a steroids guy since Gonzalez's trainer Angel Presinal has basically been banned from baseball clubhouses since 2001 after getting caught smuggling steroids (Presinal may have been a fall guy for Gonzalez).

Do the names Tom Hicks, Juan Gonzalez or Angel Presinal appear in the Mitchell Report? Did Mitchell attempt to interview either Tom Hicks or Angel Presinal? The more scrutiny the report gets the more it looks like white wash job with just enough sacrificial lambs to keep the public happy.

If you think that Presinal wasn't interviewed or included because he's "old news" - consider that he still works with numerous current players such as Ervin Santana, Robinson Cano, Luis Castillo, Francisco Cordero, and occasionally Pedro Martinez. Oh and he also works with Jose Guillen who was also named in the Mitchell Report. Makes you wonder what that $20 million spent on the report actually went for. An intern with a PC and Google probably could have done just as well.