Lyin' Braun

By Billy Z

July 23, 2013

Ryan Braun is a liar. 

Braun has been suspended for the rest of the 2013 season without pay after violating the league’s drug policy.  The Braun situation is nothing new for Major League baseball, or Professional Sports for that matter.  The link between great feats in sports and performance enhancing drugs has become the norm.  So baseball fans should not be surprised. 

They should be hurt.

Braun is a young star in baseball that seemingly did it the right way.  That is why this hurts so badly.  How could Braun look his fans in the face and lie to us? If baseball really wants to get through to PED users, they need to bring the “Hebrew Hammer” on this one. 

Ban Braun from baseball.

In his press conference on February 24, 2012, Braun made bold statements such as, “I truly believe in my heart and I would bet my life that the substance never entered my body at any point” and while looking down at a sheet of paper says, “I’ve always had tremendous respect for the game of baseball”.  Perhaps he just couldn’t look at us while he said that part.

Baseball fans believed Braun, a clean-shaven, small market guy who was “wrongly accused”, who wouldn’t want to believe him?  The fact that he lied day in and day out puts the kind of stain on baseball that no one else has.  We have seen players claim innocence before but never in the way Braun did.  He now looks like a player who was caught in a lie, releasing this statement yesterday:

“As I have acknowledged in the past, I am not perfect. 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 is has been a distraction to my teammates and the Brewers organization. I am very grateful for the support I have received from players, ownership and the fans in Milwaukee and around the country. Finally, I wish to apologize to anyone I may have disappointed - all of the baseball fans especially those in Milwaukee, the great Brewers organization, and my teammates. I am glad to have this matter behind me once and for all, and I cannot wait to get back to the game I love.”

           

Braun has been suspended for 65 games.  This is not enough.  The MLB drug policy states that the first positive test causes a 50 game suspension, and the second positive test is a 100 game suspension, and the third is a lifetime ban for the player. 

So why only 65 games? 

Maybe Bud Selig thinks that since Braun kind of got caught the first time it should be higher than 50 games, but not the full 100 games?  The truth of the matter is that not only was Braun caught, but he made MLB drug testing look like a kindergarten game of “Heads up 7 up” the way he cheated it. 

Baseball should ban Braun from baseball and give all of the players proven guilty in the Biogenesis lifetime bans.  This should be followed by a zero-tolerance stand by the MLB for a positive test.  Professional baseball players are used to having three strikes, so why wouldn’t they use two of them?  Braun signed a 5-year $105 million contract extension in April 2011, for that kind of money who wouldn’t use PEDs?

Braun not only let the fans down, but also his team.  Milwaukee stood behind him when they offered him that huge contract extension.  He was supposed to be Milwaukee’s franchise player.  How do they market a cheater and a liar?

Banning Braun and any player caught using PEDs is the only way that cheating in baseball will stop.