Eleven months ago slugger Mark McGwire's bid to join the biggest names in baseball in the Hall of Fame was overwhelmingly shot down by questions about steroid use.

Now, it appears McGwire will gain the company of some of baseball's biggest figures after all — in the sport's expanding Hall of Shame.

Move over Big Mac, make some room Barry Bonds, throw open the doors and add a new wing, plenty of company in the purgatory of public opinion is on the way, courtesy of the Mitchell Commission. With yesterday's release of 90 names of players, past and present, alleged to have used performance enhancing drugs, misery will undoubtedly have company if the assertions are valid.

Such is the stench, so total is the taint that when pitcher Roger Clemens' name comes up for Cooperstown voting in 2013 — which it would if he doesn't play another scandal-clouded season — it is hard to imagine his fate will be much better than that of McGwire, who didn't even make a third of the 75 percent vote needed for induction. For all Clemens' strident denials, yesterday's report has made him, among other things, a butt of posterior-injected derision.

Likewise for Kevin Brown and Juan Gonzales, who are due to come up for a vote in 2011, and Mo Vaughn and Matt Williams in 2009. Or David Justice and Chuck Knoblauch next month. All were listed in the Mitchell Report. All have clouds hanging over their reputations, their careers and, ultimately, their candidacies for sport's most prestigious shrine.

And while there weren't a lot of major surprises, the apparent confirmations of earlier allegations and whispers, was stunning enough. Especially when it came to Clemens, who was mentioned more than 80 times.

What was once baseball's dirty little secret got its most extensive, most authorative and long overdue airing out yesterday in what is the game's biggest disgrace since the Black Sox Scandal of 1919. How scary is it when a 400-plus report compiled over 20 months tends to back up assertions by Jose Canseco, who was also on the list and apparently all along knew of what he spoke?

Already Bonds, the most dominant hitter of his generation, has been linked and pilloried. Now, he is joined by Clemens, the most overpowering pitcher of the period. And, after yesterday's revelations. if both Superman's spinach was tainted and The Rocket's fuel was spiked, who — and more to the point — what are we left to believe in?

Remember when we only had to worry about the ball being juiced?

If seven most valuable players are under a shroud of suspicion, an all-star team of infamy now black-marked, then how many records and pennants were achieved on the up-and-up? And how many ticket-buying and TV-watching fans taken in by a sham of such a grand scale that we are only now beginning to glimpse its merest outline?

Never mind that even if all the allegations are true that Bonds and Clemens, like McGwire, had impressive resumes before allegedly resorting to chemistry. There is no way to discern how many home runs and strikeouts were the product of pharmaceuticals compared to those achieved with natural abilities.

Bonds, by the force of a scowling personality that had asserted itself even when he played with the Hawai'i Islanders in 1986, was easy to deride and mistrust. He was easy to cast as the face of baseball's dark side. Clemens was always more of a fan and media favorite. So much so that when Clemens' physical growth and late-career surge raised questions it was convenient to not believe the whispers.

But the Mitchell Report paints them both with the same stroke of dishonesty. It ties them with the same tarnished label of cheats. In that, we are now told in great detail, they have a lot of company.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.

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