Sufficiently teased yet? The pas de deux between the Mitchell Investigation and MLB is getting ridiculous. Hints and allegations are circling like buzzards, but the names supposedly won’t drop until December (watch it be the 21st at 4:58 pm).

[Quick aside - massive screw-up by the Boston Globe yesterday. They got us - and everyone, really - worked into a lather with a blog post stating that 11 free agents would be named in the George Mitchell investigation. Everybody screws up, nobody is perfect ... but they were way off - up to 11 players talked to the Mitchell Investigation. Enormous difference. Here's their apology.]

Our question today, which we posed to two of our baseball friends Thursday: is there a name that, if included in the report, would actually shake you up enough to perhaps lose interest in the sport? Can you think of a player that could rattle the foundation of baseball if George Mitchell names them as a PED user? Hardly anyone flinched when Matt Lawton, Ryan Franklin, Neifi Perez, etc were suspended, and while more high-profile names have been linked to steroid/HGH use - Sheffield, Wally Joyner, Miguel Tejada, Rocket Clemens, etc - the national reaction was surprise, followed by collective shoulder shrug because some of these folks had already been speculated about.

Both friends offered the same name: Derek Jeter.

Granted, both of these guys are die-hard Yankees fans, but they both made a good point - Jeter’s been around long enough and won enough titles that he could be considered the face of baseball. He’s plays a highly visible, marquee position, always is an MVP candidate, he’s American, and he’s a ladies man, meaning casual fans - like women in Des Moines; teenagers in Albuquerque - know him well.

Who are the other national guys? Bonds? A-Rod? Both have put up video game-like numbers (as opposed to Jeter, who is just a .300 hitter with little power), and that’s been enough to red flag just about anyone in the last decade. Is David Ortiz even in this class? Is Vlad? Johan’s the best pitcher in baseball but if he delivered a pizza to your house in Orlando, Joe Sixpack might not recognize him. David Wright probably isn’t on this level yet, nor are guys like Ryan Howard or Grady Sizemore. Our baseball friends didn’t offer a second name, but we’ll toss one out there that would completely shock us - Ichiro. If Ichiro or Jeter are named in the Mitchell Investigation (and there’s zero indication they will be), then baseball’s in trouble.