No Discipline for the Mitchell 89?

Selig is apparently still mulling it over, but the 89 players mentioned in the Mitchell Report will probably not be punished by Major League Baseball for their alleged sins. I love how the article puts it:

According to a person familiar with Selig's thinking, there's only a 50% chance
now that any players at all will face bans.

A person "familiar with Selig's thinking?" What an odd way to put that. If the person is so close to his Budship that they are "familiar with his thinking," it implies that they were party to Bud's deliberations on the subject. That could only be a couple of folks. Identifying them in such a way, therefore, means that they are likely to be easily identifiable and thus subject to a sound thrashing for leaking such sensitive information to the press!

Or it means that the source is Bud himself and he's floating a trial balloon to see what the public would think of those damned by Mitchell getting off Scot free. Personally I like this theory a lot, but it would imply that Bud has a modicum of public relations sense, and that may be the most implausible thing of all.

Either way, it's the smart play to let these players go. If you go down the punishment road, the grievances and appeals process fomented by such ex post facto "justice" would drag this saga out through Obama's second term. Of course, as is the case with the PR savvy, if Bud had any handle on the concept of closure, he wouldn't have asked Mitchell to name names in the first place.