Brewers’ OF Ryan Braun is the latest victim to test positive for performance enhancing drugs. Fresh off a National League MVP award, and guiding his Brewers to their first division title in nearly 30 years, Braun failed a urine test due to elevated levels of testosterone in his system, one that was deemed to be synthetic, not natural. To affirm the results and strengthen its case, MLB asked the World Anti-Doping Agency lab in Montreal, which conducts its testing, to perform a secondary test to determine whether the testosterone spike resulted from natural variations within Braun’s body or from an artificial source. The test indicated the testosterone was exogenous, meaning it came from outside his body.
Braun was notified of the result sometime in late October, roughly one month before he was named the NL MVP. Braun now faces a 50-game suspension, but plans to appeal it through arbitration on the grounds that he took another test a few weeks later which came up negative. He has told those around him that he did not knowingly take any banned substances. Even if a player can establish he did not knowingly take a banned substance, he must show he was not in any way negligent to appeal successfully. Taking a dietary supplement that contains an unlabeled performance-enhancing drug, for example, would not be sufficient grounds for appeal, but if he were to show that he ingested something that was either tampered with or no player reasonably could have assumed to have been contaminated, the appeal might succeed. His chances of reversing the decision aren’t good, though–no major league player has ever successfully appealed a positive test.
A spokesman for Braun released the following statement:
“There are highly unusual circumstances surrounding this case which will support Ryan’s complete innocence and demonstrate there was absolutely no intentional violation of the program. While Ryan has impeccable character and no previous history, unfortunately, because of the process we have to maintain confidentiality and are not able to discuss it any further, but we are confident he will ultimately be exonerated.”
Every individual naturally produces testosterone and a substance called epitestosterone, typically at a ratio of 1-to-1. In Major League Baseball, if the ratio comes in at 4-to-1 or higher during testing, a player is deemed to have tested positive. The sources did not indicate how high above the threshold Braun’s sample tested.
It’s a sad development considering we’re fresh off witnessing the greatest regular-season ending in baseball history. Braun had never been linked to PEDs. At the 2009 All-Star Game in St. Louis, when commissioner Bud Selig addressed efforts by Albert Pujols to tamp down questions about steroid use, he invoked Braun as a shining example of the sport’s tough testing policy.
“Albert Pujols is absolutely right. He has been tested since he started playing. So has Ryan Howard. So has Ryan Braun, Ryan Zimmerman. Since they were in the minors.”
About a month earlier, Selig said,
“Our minor league testing program is in its ninth year, and that means all the great young players in baseball, from Ryan Howard to Ryan Braun, have all been tested for nine years. There’s a system in place, and it’s working. We know we have the toughest testing program in major league sports.”
Some are laughing off the news, as the ‘all baseball players are on steroids’ argument is brought up. It is kind of funny though, but for another reason–karma’s a bitch.
Earlier that spring, after Yankees’ 3B Alex Rodriguez was exposed for using steroids, Braun spoke to MLB.com about the “mistakes” A-Rod made. Braun said he met Rodriguez in 2001 during a recruiting trip to the University of Miami. Asked if he were surprised that Rodriguez had been exposed as a steroid user, Braun was quoted saying,
“I don’t know if I would say I was surprised. I feel like it was so rampant, so prevalent, in baseball during that time period that not much surprises me anymore. If anything, I was surprised he got caught, that it came out this long after he supposedly did it.”
“… The best thing he can do is come out, admit to everything and be completely honest,” Braun said. “The situation will die a lot faster if he tells the whole truth.”
“It’s never something that I sought…I would never do it because if I took steroids, I would hit 60 or 70 home runs.”
Does Braun deserve to be stripped of his MVP award? Probably. It’s not the MLB’s decision, though, as the MVP award is done through the Baseball Writers Association of America. Braun, the face of the Brewers’ franchise and one of the best young hitters in the game, is coming off a season in which he hit .332 average, with 33 homers and 111 RBIs. If it were to be taken back, so many other questions need to be answered. Who would you give it to? Dodgers’ OF Matt Kemp? Kemp isn’t knowingly on steroids, but both Kemp and Braun passed the same drug tests during the regular season. Even if you give it to another hitter, or a pitcher, there’s no guarantee that they’re clean, either. Justin Upton, Albert Pujols, Prince Fielder. None of them have failed tests, but there’s no 100% guarantee that they’re clean. What about Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, Miguel Tejada, Sammy Sosa, Ken Caminiti, Jose Canseco–they’ve all won MVP awards and have all been linked to steroids, and their MVP awards haven’t been taken away.
Let’s assume for a moment that Braun is guilty–it’s easy to understand why players would try and get that extra boost. According to Yahoo! Sports, Major League Baseball took 3,868 tests between the beginning of the 2010 offseason and the end of the 2011 World Series. Everyone on a 40-man roster took one within the first five days of spring training, which totals about 1,200. Each took another unannounced test during the season, and the MLB added 1,200 more random tests for the rest of the year, playoffs included.
The chances of a player’s drug use lining up with a drug test is minuscule at best. While there’s no question that steroid use is down, anyone would be dead wrong to think that they’re completely out of the game. OF Manny Ramirez was the last one to be caught–the last two failed tests show that an MVP and one of the best hitters in MLB history have failed drug tests. I guarantee that fringe players like 1B Mike Jacobs and other AAA+ players trying to keep their jobs are juicing. As bad as it is, the cold hard truth is that they’re just slipping through the cracks.
So instead of celebrating the beginning of a new era in baseball, we’re back to square one, find out how we can rid performance-enhancing drugs from baseball. We will never, ever fully clear PEDs from baseball. There will always be something that slips the tests and flies under the radar. It’s inevitable. Baseball is entering its 10th season of steroid testing without one false positive. Blood testing for HGH won’t begin until spring training next season, but stiffer penalties need to be enforced. Increase the first-time offence from 50 games to 100 or 150 games. Another option is to begin voiding contracts. Braun, fresh off a 5-year/$105M extension, will lose $1.94M if his suspension is upheld. In the other 8 2/3 seasons remaining on his contract, the Brewers owe him $140.7M. While there’s a chance that Braun clears his name and reputation–albeit slim, we likely won’t see him at the dish until the season is one-third underway.
The bottom line is this: whether or not Braun is guilty, his name and legacy–just like Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, Palmiero and Giambi–will always be linked to steroids. At just 28 years of age, Braun has already eliminated any chance of being enshrined in Cooperstown. He is the first high-profile player of his generation to test positive in the ‘post-Steroid era.’ The commissioner had name-dropped Braun personally as a role model for a clean baseball player, and Braun turned around and threw it right back in his face.