I've been heads down working much of the day, but the moment I lift it seems there's another controversy brewing.

No, I'm not talking about the Mitchell Report on steroid use in baseball. (I'll come back to that momentarily.)

No, I'm talking about Google's intent to enter into the knowledge gathering world.

Or, as others are referring to it, the Wikipedia-killer.

Google's new "knol" project (a knol being a unit of knowledge...see, you learned something already!) will allow "people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article about it."

For example, based on yesterday's news about said Mitchell Report, Roger Clemens could write a really insightful knol about steroids.

The concern about the new Google Knol is that it will suck the oxygen out of Wikipedia, and that Google has many more resources to devote to it.

Moreover, Wikipedia is extremely dependent upon Google's search referrals for its visits (and therefore its contributions from the crowd).

I'm not sure it's an either/or proposition myself, and I use both frequently. And now that I know where Wikipedia is, I don't really need Google to drop me off on their doorstep.

But I can see where the scrum could be concerned. This could very well shape up to the be the "David and Goliath" story of 2008.

Then again, Google Knol could go the way of the now-retired Google Answers tool. Only time, and a few thousand knols, will tell.

Now, back to more important things, like baseball.

I hadn't heard much about the Mitchell Report until it reared its ugly curve ball head yesterday on the news.

As someone who has been a lifelong baseball fan, and who played baseball from T-ball to Little League to "Pony" league...

And as someone who found the third game of the Yankees and Braves World Series in NY one of the most thrilling sporting experiences of my life (the one where Chad Curtis hit a game-winning homer in the 10th, the first game-winning World Series homer since 1993...and the one after which Roger Clemens closed out the next game, game 4, in a shutout for the Yankees)...

Well, the whole episode just leaves a bad taste in my mouth...and I'm not sure any amount of Cracker Jacks will take it away.

Major League Baseball has taken a major black eye, no doubt about it.

Then again, so this year did cycling. And hockey. And basketball.

Am I leaving anything out?

I guess I was just a little too naive to think the problem was as epidemic as the Mitchell Report makes it out to be.

I only wonder if the MLB is really going to do anything about it...or if the whole thing will simply blow over, with little action and no repercussions.

If it's the latter, it's the small frys out there playing Little League today who will be the biggest losers.

When I was a kid, my baseball coaches (including my own dad) always told me it's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game.

This is no way to play it.

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