As anyone following baseball knows, the Mitchell report comes out today. Rumor has it between 60 and 80 players will be named, including former MVPs and All-Stars.
Most Phillies fans know about the team's storied past involving amphetamines and other drugs in the late 70s and early 80s. And most fans assume that many of the members of the crazy 1993 team were on various illegal substances. (After all, is there really any other way to explain Lenny Dykstra and Darren Daulton?)
But what about the current Phillies? Are any of them going to be on the list? Other than the high-profile incident involving Bret Myers and his wife and a couple of minor incidental players having violent pasts, this team has been embraced by the fanbase partly because it seems like it's made up of a bunch of good guys - guys who have fun, play hard, want to win, and don't do anything stupid off the field.
But none of us knows these guys other than what we see on TV and at the games and read in the papers and online. There's no reason to think that just because they come across well to us they're not as guilty of using performance-enhancing drugs as David Segui. I'd be saddened if Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard, Cole Hamels, or Shane Victorino were on the list, but there's really no basis to be surprised.
All of the Phillies, like all of MLB, have been part of baseball culture, and baseball culture, pretty much from the invention of the game, has relied heavily on performance enhancement of all kinds - legal and illegal.
As 2pm approaches, there's no reason to hold unrealistic hopes that the Phillies are going to be exempt.