When the eggnog runs dry, try these news bits on fellow revelers. You’ll be the belle of the ball.

Who’s on first: Baseball rocked by The Mitchell Report

It took a 20-month investigation to tell us what we might have already guessed—anabolic steroid use among major league baseball players is “widespread.” Perhaps more shockingly, the report also suggests that hundreds of thousands of high school students are using the drugs. 

The much anticipated Mitchell Report, named for the former senator George Mitchell who led the investigation on behalf of Major League Baseball, implicated dozens of players, including seven MVPs, and touched all 30 teams in the MLB. Some of the star players you’ll hear bandied about: Roger Clemens, Jason Giambi, Jose Canseco and Andy Pettitte.

Key facts: Over 700 witnesses were interviewed for the report, including former managers, coaches, team doctors and club officials. Just 68 former players of 500 asked agreed to interview.

What are anabolic steroids? They are a class of drugs usually prescribed to men whose bodies can’t produce enough testosterone naturally, and to strengthen people weakened by disease. Athletes use them to build muscle mass and improve athletic performance.

We covered steroids in July as San Francisco Giants’ slugger Barry Bonds raced to become the homerun king amid controversy over alleged steroid use. Incidentally, Bonds, who did beat the record, pleaded non-guilty to charges that he lied to investigators about his use of steroids. He's also named in the report.

Sorry to devote so much ink to this one, but it really stole the news show on Thursday!

Moving on, and speaking of drugs…
Hillary Clinton personally apologized to Barack Obama for a campaign aide’s comments that Obama’s openness about previous drug use would come back to bite him in the election. The aide, who quickly resigned, said Republicans would have a hay-day with it if Obama got the nomination. The apology came at a Washington airport, where apparently Clinton and Obama ran into each on their way back to Iowa.

The word of the year is w00t

No what, “w00t”—a combination of letters and numbers used in the gaming world to express joy. The word garnered the most online votes to make it Merriam-Webster’s word of the year for 2007. The dictionary folks liken it to “yay.” Other words making the top-10 list? Conundrum, apathetic and facebook (now a verb).

Now go have some fun!