Ryan Braun Not Guilty...No Suspension!!

[spacecaps]

What's this I hear about the sample being in a Tupperwear container?

Ok I gotta go back on this. He is NOT innocent. He may be innocent but nothing was proven. Braun got off on a technicality. His testosterone level was the highest of any MLB player to test positive for a banned substance in the history of the test. BUT his legal team was able to prove that the chain of custody was faulty when handling his urine. (never thought I'd type that sentence ever!) This isn't a case of MLB saying "We goofed, he's clean" it's a bunch of defense attorneys saying "We'll since you can't prove the pee was not, not tampered with, there will be no suspension." It's like getting pulled over for speeding because you were in fact speeding but finding out later that the radar gun was faulty so your ticket gets dismissed. This is going to follow him forever. In fact the news that came out today makes it look even worse for him because he escaped on a technicality rather than a clear-cut mistake during the test. And forget it if he has a bad year or even a bad start. He's got to put up MVP type numbers every year for at least half the next decade for this stigma to go away and even then, it might still not be enough. When ever anyone is asked about or accused of juicing, everyone denies it at first. Some eventually come clean and admit to doing it and others regardless of how much evidence is stacked against them will deny it to the day they die. Braun has been been pretty adamant with his "I've been wronged stance" from the beginning but never has a player been caught doing Roids and come out and immediately said "Yup, you got me. I did it."

[megomania]

What a chump to call himself a "victim" today. I have zero respect for him. Victim my a55.

-Chris

[Random Axe]

I bet he'll get a warm reception at all of his road games...

BTW separated at birth?


Ryan Braun:True Liar



Grant Heslov: True Lies

[Random Axe]

I'm surprised he didn't mention in his press conference today that all the stress of the situation has caused him to lose twenty pounds of muscle and that he needed a smaller cap size. Ah, the season is young...

This just in! David Ortiz's urine sample has tested positive for a high amount of sandwich mustard. More to come.

[Zemo]

What about the fact that he wanted a DNA test taken and MLB said no?

[jwyblejr]

^Then he should go on Maury.

[MegoMark71]

I agree that he has done nothing to prove he didn't do something. His proclamation that nothing about him changed only tells me he was getting away with whatever he was doing for a long time. I think he is screwed no matter what due to the fact that Fielder was a massive reason he was able to get the pitches he needed. The threat is now in Detroit so do they have another bat like that they can replace Fielder with? Unless he can duplicate the same numbers, he will have this cloud for his entire career. It's sad cause i really liked the guy.

[Brad]

This whole thing confuses me. I am not a huge MLB fan (the NFL is my vice) so please correct me if I am misinformed but from what I have read he has been tested tons of times and never tested positive. Now this one time he tested positive and at crazy high levels but the sample was not handled correctly. So his suspension gets overturned yet I see so many people that still believe he is guilty. To me (and as I said I may very well be wrong here) it is more believable that something happened with that sample that caused the incorrect positive. What am I missing here guys?

[Brad]

I forgot to add that I didn't even know who this guy was before all this happened. What made this story catch my attention was that I guess he is Jewish and I started seeing people (not here) using this situation to spout very antisemitic remarks about the guy.

[spacecaps]

This whole thing confuses me. I am not a huge MLB fan (the NFL is my vice) so please correct me if I am misinformed but from what I have read he has been tested tons of times and never tested positive. Now this one time he tested positive and at crazy high levels but the sample was not handled correctly. So his suspension gets overturned yet I see so many people that still believe he is guilty. To me (and as I said I may very well be wrong here) it is more believable that something happened with that sample that caused the incorrect positive. What am I missing here guys?

That one time is enough to cast doubt on a player for the rest of their lives. Look at A-Rod, he was always clean until he tested positive that one time. He's been clean since but "that one time" was enough to tarnish his image forever. Braun is trying to come off as a victim here but exactly what is he a victim of. The real problem is that if the test was inaccurate for him then it could be inaccurate for everyone that ever tested positive. For him it would have been so much better to be able to prove that he was in fact clean the whole time. Instead, he tested positive for a band substance, denied the test was correct, and then had lawyers argue and prove the chain of custody was faulty so the specimen could have been tampered with. It still doesn't change the fact that he tested positive in the first place and unless there's a guy working in a lab that handles drug testing for MLB and hates Ryan Braun so much he wants to ruin him forever (there's not) then it's just a bunch of lawyers getting their client off on a technicality. Kind of like what happened with O.J. (the first time.) He didn't get off because he didn't kill his wife, he got off because the evidence used against him was tampered with.

As for him being Jewish from your second post, I haven't heard anything negative about that when this story came out but one of his nicknames around Baseball is "The Hebrew Hammer"

[Zemo]

This whole thing confuses me. I am not a huge MLB fan (the NFL is my vice) so please correct me if I am misinformed but from what I have read he has been tested tons of times and never tested positive. Now this one time he tested positive and at crazy high levels but the sample was not handled correctly. So his suspension gets overturned yet I see so many people that still believe he is guilty. To me (and as I said I may very well be wrong here) it is more believable that something happened with that sample that caused the incorrect positive. What am I missing here guys?

Nothing at all.

[Zemo]

That one time is enough to cast doubt on a player for the rest of their lives. Look at A-Rod, he was always clean until he tested positive that one time. He's been clean since but "that one time" was enough to tarnish his image forever. Braun is trying to come off as a victim here but exactly what is he a victim of. The real problem is that if the test was inaccurate for him then it could be inaccurate for everyone that ever tested positive. For him it would have been so much better to be able to prove that he was in fact clean the whole time. Instead, he tested positive for a band substance, denied the test was correct, and then had lawyers argue and prove the chain of custody was faulty so the specimen could have been tampered with. It still doesn't change the fact that he tested positive in the first place and unless there's a guy working in a lab that handles drug testing for MLB and hates Ryan Braun so much he wants to ruin him forever (there's not) then it's just a bunch of lawyers getting their client off on a technicality. Kind of like what happened with O.J. (the first time.) He didn't get off because he didn't kill his wife, he got off because the evidence used against him was tampered with.

As for him being Jewish from your second post, I haven't heard anything negative about that when this story came out but one of his nicknames around Baseball is "The Hebrew Hammer"

The DNA test he requested would have been indisputable. MLB refused. Attacking the chain of custody was just the fastest and easiest way to get it over turned, since MLB refused the DNA test.

[Brad]

Thanks for the answers. I guess since he wasn't allowed to do the DNA test, as you pointed out Zemo, no one will ever know for sure and some will always think he was guilty. BTW, I never knew A-Rod tested positive. All I know about him, other then he is a great player, is the girls he has dated. (I think Madonna was one of them)

As far as what I saw written about him it was mostly people posting in various parts of Yahoo including some NFL message boards. This is nothing new as there are a lot of trolls out there that like to post racial crap. I see it often and usually about black NFL players. Since I don't follow the MLB that was why I didn't understand why he was being targeted. And it was not his nickname of "The Hebrew Hammer" that they were posting. "The Jewish Juicer" was one of the "nicer" ones I read. Many were far worse as you can probably imagine. I'll just leave it at that as all it did was make me curious to find out who they were talking about.

[Kotter]

Unfortunately, people just seem to prefer to believe negative things about others rather than positive. It's too bad.