Ryan Braun beats the system and MLB still won’t admit it’s got problems with its testing.

First, this is a sports post, but it does have politics and civil rights overtones in it, so you non-sports loving folks might want to read it anyway.

Ryan Braun won the MLB’s National League MVP award for last season. He was also accused of using performance enhancing drugs via the league and union’s approved testing program that goes on all year for professional players. A guilty verdict carries a huge life and career-changing event, especially if you are busted more than once, as the penalties get harsher and harsher on the player each time he fails a drug test.

The problem with the testing is that, unlike our civil justice system, you are considered guilty from the start unless you prove otherwise. Now, those of us that love sports and pay attention know that the testing for PED’s (Performance Enhancing Drugs) is needed in Major League Baseball. There have been many cheaters caught and many others suspected over the years before testing began…hell, for decades. It’s got a name in fact: The Steroid Era. One of my hero’s, Ken Caminiti admitted he used steroids the year he won the MVP whilst on the Padres in 1996, but that was long before baseball tested for PED’s. Caminiti later died of a drug overdose. It broke my heart to hear him admit he cheated that year,as a Padres fan it was our greatest year, but I digress.

Yes, its cheating. No way around that issue as PEDS make you stronger and better at your craft. Well known players have been caught doing this over the last few years, several big names are Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa. Mark Maguire was also caught up in this and it ended his playing career.  Manny Ramirez has been busted twice for it and the penalties are huge, first you miss 50 games and if busted continually, you are eventually banned for life from playing the sport. A good explanation at Wikipedia is here for the uninformed, it’s  conducted by doing a piss test that goes to a lab agreed to by both MLB and the players union. But back to Braun…

He is the first man to beat the system by appealing the automatic verdict handed down by Major League Baseball. The first to win a judgement made by an arbitrator. Only 12 other players of the dozens found guilty have appealed the verdict, all of them until now, have lost that appeal.

So when Ryan Braun appealed the decision in January he kept quiet. He only talked about this whole sordid mess after the decision was handed down Friday, in a press conference at the Brewers Spring-training facility in AZ. He lit up MLB and the entire system of PED testing:

And I don’t blame him for appearing angry or for anything he said during his presser. It now makes me wonder about the other 12 guys who appealed their suspensions and lost.

As Braun states, he believes the system is fatally flawed. His money quote for me:

“There were a lot of times where I wanted to come out and tell the entire story, attack everybody as I’ve been attacked as my name has been dragged through the mud as everything in my entire life has been called into question. I wanted to come out and tell the entire story, but at the end of the day I recognize what is best for the game of baseball,” Braun said.

“I can’t ever get that time in my life back.”

He says it’s about the system, and it is. Its about the confidentiality of the process, which was obviously compromised when the results were leaked back in December of last year.

Yet MLB came out real quick with a statement saying their system is not ‘fatally flawed’. But they can not account for the first 44 hours of where it was or who had control of Braun’s urine specimen, which btw was held in a cheesy ass tupperware container” and leaked to the press before Braun was even notified of the results. From the MLB’s statement:

“With regards to the breach of confidentiality regarding this case, both the Commissioner’s Office and the MLBPA have investigated the original leak of Ryan Braun’s test, and we are convinced that the leak did not come from the Commissioner’s Office.

Major League Baseball has however, said they will review the procedures for their testing now. Ryan Braun sure as hell didn’t leak the results, as he had nothing to gain from doing that.

The independent arbitrator did the right thing I believe. He ruled for Ryan Braun after all the evidence and the timeline of who had and controlled the specimen, prior to testing, was presented by Braun’s attorneys at the hearing.

We can only hope all the arbitrators have done the right thing in all the hearings that have been held on MLB”s PED testing…because these guys livelihood’s depended on it. But sadly, we can’t be sure now.

Thanks Ryan. I hope you get your life and reputation back. I hope people believe you when you say you were innocent as charged because there will be people and players who say you got off on a ‘technicality’ and I think that is wrong because you did prove the system was flawed. I don’t give a tinkers damn how the MLB paints it.