Ryan Braun publicly denied taking banned substances at Brewers camp today, expressing a willingness to bet his life that the substance in question never entered his body. Braun called the current drug testing system ‘fatally flawed’ and respectfully disagreed with MLB’s reaction to yesterday’s news that he won his appeal. Here’s the latest from the NL Central…
- Joe Strauss of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch hears the Cardinals recently boosted their offer to Roy Oswalt to $5MM from $3MM (Twitter links). Oswalt announced yesterday that he will look to sign midseason.
- The Cardinals have made enough progress in extension talks with Yadier Molina that an agreement could be in place within a week, Strauss reports.
- Major League Baseball is a big loser in the aftermath of Braun's appeal, since an old wound has been re-opened, Joel Sherman of the New York Post writes.
I think I probably speak for everyone when I say I’m deeply relieved that Ryan Madson will be staying with Scott Boras. Next stop, fixing the Iranian crises.
I wonder how many Brewer fans that are claiming Braun’s innocence because he won his appeal based on a technicality will say the same for anyone on trial that gets acquited based on a technicality?
I disagree that it was a technicality. If this was a criminal case, the test would be inadmissable. Also, if MLB knew what happened with the sample, why wouldn’t they throw it out and re-test it? Also, how does one take a PED that changes absolutely nothing?
Had there not been an open Fed-Ex elsewhere in the city of Milwaukee, the appeal (at least the line taken by Braun’s lawyers) would have failed. I’d say that makes it a “technicality”.
He may have been innocent anyway, we’ll never know, but his case was built on a technicality. You’ll note, Braun’s legal team never said that the sample was tampered with. They charged that the handling didn’t follow the proper procedures.
casey anthony knows what is going on
Because they didnt need to prove the sample was tampered with. They only needed to prove the chain of custody was broken.
You don’t defend yourself in a murder case by saying “there was no way I could of stabbed that person because they were bigger, stronger, and I had no blood on my body”, you say “I didn’t stab that person because I was not even in the same country”.
Go ask a medical pro who works with samples and COC’s if 44 hours in someone’s basement fridge is acceptable.
Yes. This.
According to the rules agreed to by the players and management under the CBA, it would have been acceptable had there not been another Fed-Ex (further away, but still in Milwaukee) which was still open.
i just did. he said “no, that’s not acceptable. a lot of times what will happen after about 40 hours is that the whole thing will spontaneously turn into synthetic testosterone”
Would 44 hours in someones possession in which we have no clue what that person might have done with the sample make a difference?
The sample was sealed and the seal remained unbroken the entire time, so…
Really? So you know with 100% certainty that the sample was not tampered with in ANY way?
Let me answer that for you. No, you don’t know. In fact, right now nobody really does.
It’s not easy to no any thing with 100% certainty, it is however, much more unlikely that the sample was tampered with than Ryan Braun simply failing the urine test for the usual reasons, no one needs to be literally 100% certain. Also, please don’t answer for me again, it’s really off-putting.
Likely, unlikely… doesn’t matter what you think.
MLB has to prove that Braun failed the test without a doubt and Braun has to prove that something happened along the way to make the test invalid. Braun and his lawyers did not need to prove the test was tampered with or whether or not a seal was broken. All they needed to do is show there is reasonable doubt which there IS because of the break in the chain of custody. Showing that something could have happened is all they needed to do. This violates the MLB joint drug agreement which is why the arbitrators ruled in his favor.
Off-putting? Can’t handle someone making sense and talking fact instead of repeating mis-information? Good.
If you could tone down the arrogance and condescension then we can a have a conversation, until then have fun shouting at your computer screen.
I love it when someone who makes a cogent, intelligent, rational argument is accused of being arrogant and condescending. Stalebrew is holding up his end of the argument, Michael. We’re all just waiting on you.
Honestly? How is this, “Off-putting? Can’t handle someone making sense and talking fact instead of repeating mis-information? Good.”
not condescending and arrogant? Please, tell me. Obviously I just don’t have a reasonable point of view.
So…nobody should ever be suspended again? Maybe Manny’s sample was tampered with. Should his suspension be lifted too?
There’s a reason why the MLBPA has a joint drug prevention agreement which specifically states the chain of custody rules. This agreement was violated which is why the arbitrators ruled in favor of Braun.
Why were these rules violated? We don’t know. Maybe Braun got lucky or maybe the chain of custody was broken because somebody wanted to tamper with the samples. The point is this brings question to the validity of the samples.
So if the defense is that a qualified collector cannot be trusted, then that pretty much throws out every test.
It’s what makes this such a joke that he managed to get away with cheating.
So what you’re saying is that everybody in a qualified position never does anything wrong? And if 1 person is accused of something, everyone in the system cannot be trusted?
I’m saying if you refuse to trust the officials that carry out the testing, then what is the point of testing.
Doesn’t that invalidate every single test, every single time.
Do you know 100% that the collector didn’t tamper with Manny’s sample?
You trust the officials until protocol is broken. That’s why the agreement is there in the first place.
Every single test that violates protocol IS invalid according to the agreement between the MLBPA and MLB.
No I don’t know that Manny’s sample wasn’t tampered with but I DO know protocol was not violated and Manny could not prove to the arbitrators that something went wrong in his case.
What can I say. there will always be the gullible cheerleaders out there that are willing to believe any conspiracy theory that is thrown their way.
Actually, we do know with 100% certainty that Braun’s sample was not tampered with. To be tested the seal on the sample must remain unbroken, and the seal can be identified by a bar code placed on it upon it’s collection that matches it to the person the sample came from, the seal can not be replaced if broken, and the only possible way for synthetic testosterone to be found in Braun’s urine is through his own ingestion or through tampering, which has already been proven to be impossible.
No you do not know this for a fact.
YesIdo.SeeIcandothattoo.
Considering the tamper-proof seal was unbroken on both his A and B samples, then yes – I’d say it’s pretty clear that the samples were not tampered with.
So unless you believe that urine magically turns into testosterone after a 48 hour period, then Ryan Braun is a cheater.
How do you know nothing was tampered with? Because you heard a couple of rumors over the internet? Or because you heard Braun’s lawyers did not show the seal was tampered with?
The fact is nobody knows if the sample was tampered with. Just because you heard a seal was not broken doesn’t mean anything.
It seems obvious you want to just ignore facts, science and logic here and bury your head in the sand, because gosh – Ryan Braun is a really swell guy.
Who is the one ignoring facts? What facts are YOU referring to?
Apparently everything that ESPN says is fact now and waiting to hear all the details doesn’t seem to matter.
The World Doping Agency, the Director of the lab in Montreal where the testing took place, MLB and the players Union all agree that there was no evidence of tampering with either of the samples.
…but we’ll just dismiss all of that as “a couple of internet rumors”. …because, you know, Braun has a really nice smile.
It was probably just the collector’s setting on his refridgerator. Everybody knows that if urine reaches 43 degrees, it spontaneously transforms into pure testosterone. That’s science.
Your rationalizations are laughable.
The Lab Director is not a forensic scientist and what he says proves nothing.
We have to wait to see if the facts of what happened with the sample come out and if not, everybody is going to have their own opinions and nobody will ever know for sure if he was using PEDs.
Since you seem so positiveabout all of this, explain to us how it’s possibleto inject testosterone into a urine sample withoutbreaking a tamper-proof seal.
Or is your argument that the sample was tampered with and everybody at the lab, the World Doping Agenc, MLB, the players union and every memberof the media are lying about this in some grand conspiracy theory to make Ryan Braun look like a bad guy?
Solvents, heat, who knows… The point is you don’t know as much as I dont know.
.
.
Forget science? That’s exactly what you’re doing by ASSUMING opinions are fact.
This is such a cop-out though!
You don’t know if someone tampered with a sample if they had even 5 minutes alone with it, much less 44 hours!
That’s why it’s such a crappy way to win a case.
Would 44 hours in someones possession in which we have no clue what that person might have done with the sample make a difference?
His appeal is based on a technicality, yes–but did it cross your mind that perhaps this is because Braun’s lawyers are paid enough to realize that nobody has ever won an appeal challenging the science of the testing process itself? And that if there was an error in the chain of custody its essentially a slam-dunk appeal win? Just as in a trial, the law is the law, and the process of testing must be unvaried from in order to prove guilt or innocence without a shadow of doubt.
Having won his case based on the technicality isn’t going to help his reputation. This isn’t a court of law, but the court of public opinion, where the burden of proof and rules of evidence are different.
Once this story was leaked to the press it became he became guilty. This was done prior to all the facts being presented. In USA we are not to think a person is guilty prior to hearing ALL the facts.
The main thing to do is win the appeal. That’s where the ‘court of law’ comes into play. Now he can move on to restoring his reputation.
The main thing to do is win the appeal. That’s where the ‘court of law’ comes into play. Now he can move on to restoring his reputation.
It’s not a technicality when a urine sample is in the hands of person who is aware who’s sample it is for 44 hours in conditions that can change dramatically the nature of the sample. There were numerous Fed Ex offices open at the time the collector contended he couldn’t drop them off.
It’s also no accident that this was the urine sample of the MVP of the league and the results would have been revealed to him in time for that year’s World Series which at the time the Brewers had a better than decent chance of getting to.
Put 2 and 2 together and quit believing everything you hear from the stooges at ESPN.
Are you suggesting that the Brewers failed to make the WS because Braun was falsely accused of steroid use?
That’s a new one.
Were you wearing a tin foil hat when you typed that?
Braun essentially accused the guy who took the sample of tampering with it. If I’m that guy I sue his…you know what. According to reports, Braun’s legal team never argued tampering during the arb hearing only chain of custody. Also, reports are no seals wear broken on the package. Now he comes out and says he would bet his life he never ingested anything that would cause that test. That’s an accusation of tampering by the collector.
Yeah, he can say he would bet his life on it because he knows he will never have to do that, it’s the epitome of an empty gesture.
Look for a law suit to come out against the handling company in Milwaukee.
I really don’t see the purpose of a player who can only play 60% of your games. Rolen is either taking up space for a youngster or just needs to be a bench leader.
I don’t know the Reds system well but given the lack of quality third basement out there, I’m willing to guess he isn’t blocking anybody. If he is, he’ll be hurt soon enough and that guy’ll come up.
They have some fellows who could do as much as Rolen has done recently. Frazier could probably handle it. But yes, 3B is pretty slim right now.
Juan Francisco is next in line. His defense looked good in his call-up last year, but he still needs to learn a bit of plate disciplince.
He is having a recurring calf strain issue related to last season. I like Juan, but I am not sure if his body weight or an undiagnosed issue is being hidden. I would love to see Juan play everyday, or at worse, a split between two youngsters playing for it (Juan and Todd).
Doesn’t surprise me. Ryan Madson’s been with Boras since his career’s started and they seem to have a solid relationship.
Besides, there’s other perks to being a Boras client than Money. Doesn’t he have a top notch training facility?
Madson made the smart move by sticking with Boras. His big pay-out might be delayed a year, but if he’s able to post respectable numbers in GABP, I see no reason why he can’t maintain his value, or even increase it by next winter.
Ryan Braun using the OJ Simpson defense hardly equals innocence. He is now branded and will always be in the cheat crowd.
anyone that has a good year is put in the cheat crowd or will be suspected of it.. just ask Jose Bautista
It’s unfortunate. Basically, Ryan Braun was guilty but because of someone’s negligence, he’s getting away with taking a PED. (knowingly or not, I really don’t care).
Hopefully he stays clean and this sends a message to everybody in the sport to watch what they take.
It’s funny how none of the other samples that were with Brauns sample the entire time never showed a false positive. I wonder why that is?
What samples? If you’re talking about other player’s samples, you have NO IDEA what the results of those samples were.
He was the only one who failed.
How in the hell do you know this? The whole process is supposed to be
CONFIDENTIAL. There may be other players who tested positive and had
THEIR hearings overturned OR his sample may have been the only one
tampered with.
If they ALL failed… he wouldn’t have been suspended because MLB would have realized something was wrong with the test…
Actually we do, if he had tested positive prior to this he would not have been able to play 100 games vice the 50 games he was facing. The question is not about did he do it or not. It is about the process and keeping it above and beyond reproach. It is better to have a guilty person go free than an innocent person being punished.
So you’re referring to Braun’s previous samples not being positive? Then yes, I agree it is odd none of his other samples have been positive and this one tested 20:1.
We will know the truth once Braun’s legal team gets through with suing and or handing over to the local DA records that implicate the sample collector. What will be really interesting will be finding the co-conspiritor within MLB that leaked the tainted results to ESPN.
None of this was an accident. Hint, this is gambling related.
I would guess the leak was due to Braun’s own legal team running around questioning experts and trying to find loop holes to weasel their way out of his punishment.
I really doubt that’s the case.
I really wonder what the fans will say if Braun suddenly loses some pop or ability to play 100% all year from now on? Must have been the fedex guy. 🙂
He hasn’t been able to play 100% all year, not since the MiLB days, he has had reoccurring back spasms/issues that lead to occasional off-days/bad days at the plate.
Scott Rolen is a good example of the kind of guy who should definitely be a Hall of Famer, but will have trouble getting in, because people don’t appreciate defense, positional scarcity, or the value of broad-based skills, even if they don’t give you any one standout counting stat. It’ll be like Alan Trammell all over again.
He may make it someday with a Veteran committee vote..
The real tragedy here is the fact that MLB can’t keep their people in check and this was ever leaked to the public. Now an innocent man has to fight a war of public opinion.
Where’s the investigation into the leak by MLB?
who’s the innocent man you are talking about? You can’t possibly mean Braun, that would be crazy.
It bet you think OJ was fraimed too.
I guess “FIB” struck a nerve, huh?
No, why would it?
Now go back to pretending that the facts don’t mean Brauns a cheat and that this will not stick with him for the rest of his life. People like you may not care about drug cheats, but the rest of us do.
All the meanwhile you pretend like you have all the unreleased facts. Yeah, all right buddy…
So the chain of custody was broken and the sample was improperly stored and transferred. That doesn’t mean it was tampered with or that it became tainted somehow.
Of course, if you were afraid that *did* happen, you’d want to look for some kind of wildly unusual result… like, oh, say… a guy who had come up clean on the previous 25 tests suddenly showing a testosterone level twice as high as ever recorded in the history of the test.
Although he deserves to get off on this technicality, it does not help explain why the other samples that were with Brauns the entire time did not show a false negative.
Neither does the theory that he actually did test positive provide much of an explanation for how his testosterone levels were twice as high as any ever recorded.
There are a lot of layers to this thing. We’ll probably never know the whole story.
“i’ve passed all my previous tests” is an argument available to every player* who fails a test. it’s not very persuasive because it’s not very surprising
*except manny ‘menopause’ ramirez
Wait until the law suit is filed and it comes out who the courier was that has the sample for 2 days.
Ryan Braun expressed a willingness to bet his life that the substance in question never entered his body.
I don’t know how Ryan can gamble on his life when a simple drug test will do! “Quite Frankly”, the drug test did and Ryan simply did not like the results. He Failed! Also, my other question would be when did Ryan find out his drug sample wasn’t handled optimally? Obviously, it wasn’t handled in the best way. Still, it doesn’t change the fact that he failed the drug test. Lastly, if everyone involved did nothing to taint the sample other than handle it less than optimally, why did you fail? I mean Ryan you do bear some responsibility in all this. It’s kind of like that movie from 1994 that Robert Redford directed “Quiz Show”
Mark Van Doren: This is not the time to play games!
Charles Van Doren At mine own, it was mine!
Mark Van Doren Your name is mine!
It’s your name Ryan Braun and your Reputation! I mean you didn’t question the MLB drug testing methods before you failed and now that you failed you question it? Hmmm, seems kind of disingenuous to me or at the very least convenient.
Braun called the current drug testing system ‘fatally flawed’ and respectfully disagreed with MLB’s reaction to yesterday’s news. Well, it’s my opinion that your attitude towards this is “Fatally Flawed” because I think you’re guilty. Also, I respectfully disagree with your reaction, because you still haven’t answered as to why you failed the MLB administered drug test!
PS Why?
I do not like the Braun outcome at all. It’s bad for baseball in my opinion.
I’m sure you’ll hear disagreements from Brewers fans, but I completely agree with you.
Guilty or Innocent, Braun won his appeal on a technicality.
It would have been much better for baseball if his appeal had either failed, or concrete evidence of tampering been shown. His lawyers never even made an accusation of tampering. Now, we’re left in limbo. He’s not guilty, but his lawyers never claimed he was innocent either.
That’s kinda the problem with this whole thing, everything is left in limbo even with a conclusion. Steroids in baseball has a witch hunt mentality, guilty until proven innocent. Unfortunately Braun was unable to prove innocence, he was only able to prove the technicality.
The sad fact is since we don’t know what happened Braun could be dogged by this incident for a while.
We do know he failed the test that determines if he used PEDs.
We also know the test was off the charts positive. An anomaly.
My point is simply what many here are proving. He’s been judge guilty in the court of public opinion.
Agreed and rightfully so in my opinion.
We do know he failed the test that determines if he used PEDs.
Agreed. It may have gotten Braun out of his suspension, but exoneration? Not really. People are still going to doubt him. If any good outcome comes of this, it will be MLB changing their rules on the handling of samples and perhaps hiring having more than one sample and testing path.
The Cardinals original offer to Oswalt was only $3 million? Wow. No wonder he’s staying home.
My thoughts exactly. I thought it was more like 5-7 mil but 3? Damn, that’s like a slap in the face.
And the only offer he has, so it can’t be that much of a slap.
Well, maybe not a slap in the face, more of a wake up call I guess.
Well, maybe not a slap in the face, more of a wake up call I guess.
Ridiculous! When he comes back mid-season for $5M, I am sure it won’t be with StL — a lowball offer is worse than no offer at all. That’s seriously insulting. Nice work, Redbirds.
Obviously you arent aware of the Cardinals salary budget. They likely offered him that lower of an offer because that is all they can afford to spend on him, not because he’s not worth more than 3 million. Earlier this offseason, the Cardinals were trying to find a trade partner for Kyle McClellan so they can get rid of his salary so they can up their offer for Oswalt but weren’t successful in doing that.
Ridiculous! When he comes back mid-season for $5M, I am sure it won’t be with StL — a lowball offer is worse than no offer at all. That’s seriously insulting. Nice work, Redbirds.
Barry Bonds and Ryan Braun will now be forever linked.
No, Braun has become a story all on his own.
If Bonds is linked to anyone it’s to Clemens. Two once in a lifetime talents, both charged with perjury.
And drug use.
Well I figured that was a given.
Somewhere Aoki is crying
Doubt he ever would have signed with the Brewers without the 50 game suspension being seemingly likely. Too bad for him, really, as this pushes him to 5th OF basically.
Nah…they don’t cry in Japan, they live the way of the samurai and use the short sword.
First of all, was he really accused of taking PED or just having abnormal test. levels? what I understand is there are other medications that cause higher levels of test. I wouldn’t put Braun in the same league as Bonds and others just yet.
He did try to blame his Herpres medication on his failed drug test until they found a loophole in prepossessing to exploit.
Of the tens of thousands of tests given so far, he is the only to claim a false positive due to his other drug use, an inexcusable explanation but does show his willingness to use any excuse to get him out of trouble.
Now he is saying the Herpes story was a complete lie and he has never had an STD according to his press conference. So, he says he doesn’t have an STD, his agent says he does and the medication is the cause of the test to sky rocket in levels. Just sounds more and more fishy by the day.
this is a sad day for baseball, not only does a player who had a 100 game suspension get that reduced by half just because he VOLUNTARILY sat out almost all of last season get signed by a team so he’s able to play earlier this week, but now we have this guy who clearly failed a test and got away with it, even after wrongfully winning the MVP award… something extremely fishy is going on with baseball…
That’s bad that the Cards upped their offer to $5 mil, meanwhile the Bucs offered him 10 and he said no.
The only reason Testosterbraun thinks the system is “fatally flawed” is because he got caught.
The only reason Testosterbraun thinks the system is “fatally flawed” is because he got caught.
Braun said today that other players were tested the same day he was tested. Fed X held the sample so the test is invalid. Why didn’t the other players samples not show up with high rates of testostorone? Why was Braun’s sample be held and not the other samples? This just smells bad. Looks like Selig put the fix in, and by acting agains’t the verdict both Braun and MLB come out smelling like a rose, and the system and Fed X are the culprits. Ingenious!
Leave it to the media to build or crush those in the spotlight…
Agreed, how dare they report on drug cheats, we should all just pretend he passed his test.
Kemp’s better. A little less power but more speed on the bases and Kemp’s a gold glove outfielder.