Last week, the game of baseball was changed forever. All it took was a 409-page report with 86 named players.

The Mitchell Report, released Thursday, identified some of the biggest names in the game. Then again, some of the names were … not so big.

You barely have to keep up with sports at all to know some of these names: Roger Clemens, Andy Pettite, Miguel Tejada, Eric Gagne, David Justice, Mo Vaughn, Paul LoDuca, Troy Glaus, Chuck Knoblauch, Brian Roberts, Kevin Brown, Fernando Vina …

There are the players who have already been associated with performance-enhancing drugs: Barry Bonds, Gary Sheffield, Jose Canseco, Jason Giambi, Ken Caminiti …

But of the 86 names on this big long list, the majority are hardly tabloid fodder. Raise your hand if you’ve heard of Bobby Estallella, Mark Carreon, Hal Morris, Chris Donnels, Mike Lansing, Jim Parque, or Paxton Crawford. Only hardcore baseball enthusiasts (like me) could have raised their hands before this report came out.

I had mixed emotions as I read the list for the first time. I was expecting to find some big names, but some of them truly surprised me. Roger Clemens? Nah, he just worked hard for those 354 wins. Andy Pettite? No way, he’s just an everyday talented southpaw. Eric Gagne? There's no way he cheated for those 63 saves in a row.

Yet although I was shocked by the allegations, I was glad that finally some effort was being made to clean up the murky waters of the steroid era. Make all the claims you want that the sources aren't reliable; legal documents are legal documents, and cheaters are cheaters. The evidence has been presented, and the facts can't be denied.

The implicated players have reacted differently. Pettite, Roberts, and Vina have already issued their apologies, although they sounded a little fishy. Clemens, on the other hand, today denied that he ever took any performance-enhancing drug. Yet Clemens had a close relationship with Pettite, both were named together in the report, and the fact that Pettite admitted his usage makes Clemens' claim more suspicious.

It is important, however, to differentiate between the different PEDs. Anabolic steroids are testable, and they are illegal in most competitive sports, including Major League Baseball. Tests did not become widespread and punishments did not become strict until 2005. Human growth hormone is also illegal in baseball, but no valid test for that PED yet exists. Other PEDs exist, and even if a valid test for HGH is discovered and implemented, players have found and will find other ways to cheat.

Ultimately, the problem in the steroid era was that players could either take PEDs illegally, or find themselves at a competitive disadvantage. Hopefully now that the names are out, players will realize the problems with cheating, and the game will become untarnished forever. Unfortunately, the baseball world is not a utopia.

But the Mitchell Report should bring the end of the Steroids Era, at least.