If Jeter or Rivera had been on the list, I’d have pronounced the Yankee dynasty of the 1990s a complete fraud and set this site off on a party jag worthy of the U.S. capturing Bin Laden. But you knew they wouldn’t be. It’s a simple question of physique. Did anyone not think Bonds, Clemens, or the dynamic duo of 1998 were suspect given the eye-popping muscle mass they acquired in their later years? Pujols fits the profile, too, although I confess I fell for the narrative that he was The Natural. We’ll see what George Mitchell has to say at 2 p.m.

So many exit questions here. Does the report really matter? Will baseball recover? Will Captain Classy, whose media halo approaches that of a secular saint, have a good explanation for why he didn’t know that so many of his players were apparently juicing? And who, ultimately, is the big winner today? It’d have to be a great player who doesn’t stand accused, whose accomplishments will take on a new luster now that his rivals’ achievements are fatally tainted by comparison.

That last one’s rhetorical, of course.

Update: The plot thickens. MLB officials are disputing the report of who’s on the list but WNBC is standing by it. One hour until we know for sure.

Update: Here’s the Mitchell report, via the Smoking Gun. I see no mentions of Pujols, Johnny Damon, or, remarkably, Sammy Sosa. The Natural is back!