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Ryan Braun has a bad thumb, the Milwaukee Brewers are in last place, and the left fielder is in his last season as a seven-figure earner before joining the $10 million-a-year club in 2014. If there was ever a good time to serve a drug suspension, it is now. Braun can get his thumb healthy, fans in Wisconsin can start gearing up for Packers training camp, and everyone else can just about forget that this whole affair happened once the next shoe drops on Alex Rodriguez.
Braun did the crime in the Biogenesis scandal, now he does the time, without appealing as he did following a positive test for elevated testosterone levels in 2011, the year he was MVP of the National League. That time, Braun got off on a technicality—his urine had been stored improperly, he contended, voiding the result. An arbitrator rescinded Braun’s suspension.
Ryan Braun gives up a few million this season, but he won't need to forfeit the bulk of his huge contract, which kicks in next year. (AP Photo)
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“As I have acknowledged in the past, I am not perfect,” Braun said in a statement on Monday. “I realize now that I have made some mistakes. I am willing to accept the consequences of those actions. This situation has taken a toll on me and my entire family, and it has been a distraction to my teammates and the Brewers organization.”
That’s some good plea bargain language right there, and there must have been a deal, because MLB’s guidelines for PED suspensions are 50 games for a first positive test, 100 games for a second, and a lifetime ban for being so stupid that you get caught three times. Braun’s 65-gamer is acceptable to all parties because “rest of the season” looks nice from an MLB standpoint, and for Braun and the Brewers, it means a fresh start in 2014.
Braun makes his deal and gets away. Fine. The time for moral outrage passed when MLB and the MLBPA agreed to the 50/100/life system. PED use is now just a form of cheating that, like all other forms of cheating in baseball, only has consequences if you get caught. It’s not all that different from scuffing a ball or corking a bat. You screw up, you get suspended, you come back, you get harangued a bit by the fans, you go back to work. Melky Cabrera got a two-year, $16 million contract from the Toronto Blue Jays over the winter fresh off a 50-game suspension. He didn’t have to give back his All-Star MVP award. Braun won’t have to give back his MVP award or his 2012 NL home run title. Ill-gotten gains, sure, but nobody is taking them away.
Everything even worked out OK for Dino Laurenzi, the urine collector whose mishandling of Braun’s 2011 sample let the Brewers star off the hook the first time around. Braun owes him an apology, certainly, for besmirching his good name, but according to Laurenzi’s father, in an interview with Milwaukee radio station WTMJ last month, “I don’t think it affected him. He’s a good kid. And he’s hard-working. He had nothing to worry (about), nothing to fear. . . . I just feel sorry for the whole (Brewers) organization, really. I think the first time, if (Braun) had taken a suspension, like he should have, I think this would have all blown over.”
It’s the old adage that the cover-up is usually worse than the crime. In Braun’s case, that is debatable, because if he had taken a 50-game suspension last year, he would not have gotten that home run title. Braun was limited to 61 games this season by the thumb injury and now by his past mistakes. But it will still blow over because that’s how it works. Braun will get booed on the road and cheered at home. The precedent was set with Barry Bonds after the book “Game of Shadows” chronicled his drug use, and it continues now.
Fans don’t care, and at this point, baseball’s sacred numbers have been sullied enough that there really isn’t any reason for righteous indignation at anything other than continued violations of federal drug laws, which is a pretty boring thing to be righteously indignant about, so nobody is. Fifty games, 65 games, 100 games, whatever—baseball can say that it has a system, and that the system is working, and that the system is stronger than the NFL’s. It’s all true, and it would really be nice if the same kind of pride was taken in league discipline for millionaires who can’t be bothered to call a taxi after a night of drinking and instead decide to endanger the lives of the public.
The rewards are still there for using performance-enhancing drugs—namely, enhanced performance, and more professional success and money as a result—so long as players don’t get caught, or sometimes, even if they do. Just ask Ryan Braun after his soft landing.
Braun did the crime in the Biogenesis scandal, now he does the time, without appealing as he did following a positive test for elevated testosterone levels in 2011, the year he was MVP of the National League. That time, Braun got off on a technicality—his urine had been stored improperly, he contended, voiding the result. An arbitrator rescinded Braun’s suspension.
Ryan Braun gives up a few million this season, but he won't need to forfeit the bulk of his huge contract, which kicks in next year. (AP Photo)“As I have acknowledged in the past, I am not perfect,” Braun said in a statement on Monday. “I realize now that I have made some mistakes. I am willing to accept the consequences of those actions. This situation has taken a toll on me and my entire family, and it has been a distraction to my teammates and the Brewers organization.”
That’s some good plea bargain language right there, and there must have been a deal, because MLB’s guidelines for PED suspensions are 50 games for a first positive test, 100 games for a second, and a lifetime ban for being so stupid that you get caught three times. Braun’s 65-gamer is acceptable to all parties because “rest of the season” looks nice from an MLB standpoint, and for Braun and the Brewers, it means a fresh start in 2014.
Braun makes his deal and gets away. Fine. The time for moral outrage passed when MLB and the MLBPA agreed to the 50/100/life system. PED use is now just a form of cheating that, like all other forms of cheating in baseball, only has consequences if you get caught. It’s not all that different from scuffing a ball or corking a bat. You screw up, you get suspended, you come back, you get harangued a bit by the fans, you go back to work. Melky Cabrera got a two-year, $16 million contract from the Toronto Blue Jays over the winter fresh off a 50-game suspension. He didn’t have to give back his All-Star MVP award. Braun won’t have to give back his MVP award or his 2012 NL home run title. Ill-gotten gains, sure, but nobody is taking them away.
Everything even worked out OK for Dino Laurenzi, the urine collector whose mishandling of Braun’s 2011 sample let the Brewers star off the hook the first time around. Braun owes him an apology, certainly, for besmirching his good name, but according to Laurenzi’s father, in an interview with Milwaukee radio station WTMJ last month, “I don’t think it affected him. He’s a good kid. And he’s hard-working. He had nothing to worry (about), nothing to fear. . . . I just feel sorry for the whole (Brewers) organization, really. I think the first time, if (Braun) had taken a suspension, like he should have, I think this would have all blown over.”
It’s the old adage that the cover-up is usually worse than the crime. In Braun’s case, that is debatable, because if he had taken a 50-game suspension last year, he would not have gotten that home run title. Braun was limited to 61 games this season by the thumb injury and now by his past mistakes. But it will still blow over because that’s how it works. Braun will get booed on the road and cheered at home. The precedent was set with Barry Bonds after the book “Game of Shadows” chronicled his drug use, and it continues now.
Fans don’t care, and at this point, baseball’s sacred numbers have been sullied enough that there really isn’t any reason for righteous indignation at anything other than continued violations of federal drug laws, which is a pretty boring thing to be righteously indignant about, so nobody is. Fifty games, 65 games, 100 games, whatever—baseball can say that it has a system, and that the system is working, and that the system is stronger than the NFL’s. It’s all true, and it would really be nice if the same kind of pride was taken in league discipline for millionaires who can’t be bothered to call a taxi after a night of drinking and instead decide to endanger the lives of the public.
The rewards are still there for using performance-enhancing drugs—namely, enhanced performance, and more professional success and money as a result—so long as players don’t get caught, or sometimes, even if they do. Just ask Ryan Braun after his soft landing.
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