Ryan Braun going down?

[Ghosts of 1990]

I just don't know if there's enough on the table to apply a 50-game suspension to Braun that was initially overturned.

[TSJ55]

Originally Posted by _Sir_Charles_

I'm still waiting for a celebrity endorsement deal for one of these PED producing companies.

Ryan Braun-"Bio-fit, so good you'll never have to deny it!"

This would be awesome and I don't think all that far off. Maybe not athlete endorsements but actors. (seen Stallone's new movie trailor?). At the rate these "Anti Aging" clinics are popping up and the level of "medicine" doctors can prescribe, it's only a matter of time.

[kaldaniels]

Originally Posted by TSJ55

Dan Patrick used the words "Good person" in relation to using PEDs in baseball. Context being the only player that would surprise him is Jeter b/c he seems to begood person and does everything the "right" way.

I'm a huge DP fan, but this is a total joke. These cats don't owe the media and/or the fans anything in regards to PEDs. To measure their "goodness" with that metric is way out of bounds.

They are elite athletes and got where they are by exploiting every advantage they could find. PEDs enhance that advantage. Getting the edge any way possible will never be ruled out of the athlete's mindset.

But using PEDs is cheating, and getting caught results in a major penalty hurting both player and team. Are you suggesting players should try to get away with PEDs? What adjective would you use to describe a player on banned PEDs? Smart? Advantageous? ???

[TSJ55]

Originally Posted by kaldaniels

But using PEDs is cheating,

"Cheating" is a subjective term.

Originally Posted by kaldaniels

Are you suggesting players should try to get away with PEDs?

I'm suggesting that elite athletes will do anything in their power to win. When you add the amount of money that is being thrown around, all bets are off. Unless someone meets both of these criteria, they cannot say with any real certainty what they would or wouldn't do if put in this situation. So all the judging is uncalled for.

Originally Posted by kaldaniels

What adjective would you use to describe a player on banned PEDs? Smart? Advantageous? ???

I would describe players getting caught today as "stupid". I would describe players not using in 1997 as "stupid" as well as question their will to win.

[kaldaniels]

Originally Posted by TSJ55

"Cheating" is a subjective term.


I'm suggesting that elite athletes will do anything in their power to win. When you add the amount of money that is being thrown around, all bets are off. Unless someone meets both of these criteria, they cannot say with any real certainty what they would or wouldn't do if put in this situation. So all the judging is uncalled for.



I would describe players getting caught today as "stupid". I would describe players not using in 1997 as "stupid" as well as question their will to win.

Please post my whole quote about cheating so context can be seen.

I also didn't ask how you would describe players who have been caught. What about those using who have yet to be caught?

Eh, I don't think this is going anywhere, as you believe past non-users are stupid.

[OGB]

Originally Posted by TSJ55

I would describe players getting caught today as "stupid". I would describe players not using in 1997 as "stupid" as well as question their will to win.

When there are proven long term health risks associated with steroid use, I would certainly not call anyone stupid who didn't want to use. The science is really new for a lot of this, too. In forty or fifty years, we might find out there were some ugly long term results from using some of these designer muscle builders. I mean, I don't think I'd be comfortable going on a regular regiment of something called growth hormone. It sounds like something would go horribly wrong and suddenly you're a villain in a Spiderman comic.

[cincrazy]

We keep demonizing guys like Braun, the big names, when in reality, there are dozens, maybe hundreds of guys just like him, right under our nose, doing the same thing. Probably more than a few Reds as well, maybe some we'd never expect. It's the nature of the game today. I don't like it, but good luck policing it. The high-profile guys get picked on and get their reputations wrecked (not saying it's not somewhat deserved), while the lesser-known guys catch hardly any heat at all. Quite the double standard.

[Bumstead]

Originally Posted by TSJ55

I'm suggesting that elite athletes will do anything in their power to win. When you add the amount of money that is being thrown around, all bets are off. Unless someone meets both of these criteria, they cannot say with any real certainty what they would or wouldn't do if put in this situation. So all the judging is uncalled for.

Some people have integrity and know it. Most of these players are not a part of this group (the group with integrity). Ryan "here come even more explanations/excuses" Braun....how dare we accuse him of anything more than being a product of the injections he receives...oops...

Bum

[FlightRick]

Originally Posted by TSJ55

"Cheating" is a subjective term.

I disagree. "Cheating" is pretty much a cut-and-dry issue. Circumventing the rules for your own gain is cheating.

What's subjective is how repugnant the act is, because that depends on how important the rule being circumvented is, and how much the person gained by circumventing it. Plotting the act on that X/Y axis (which may be a matter for subjective debate), and you can determine how major/minor the act was. But it's still cheating (which is the objective label that applies).

I would describe players not using in 1997 as "stupid" as well as question their will to win.

Someone better-read than I may have to correct me on this, but: didn't MLB already have rules on the books about drug use in (and before) 1997, but simply didn't have the authority to conduct any serious testing? Basically, "Using drugs is against the rules. You're on the honor system, unless you really screw up like Darryl Strawberry or something."

Assuming I'm right that the rules were there, just unenforceable in any serious way, does that change your statement(s)? Or do you stick to the idea of cheating being "subjective," and players taking drugs in 1997 were operating justifiably within the system available to them?

Personally, I've spent decades rooting for the bad guys in pro wrestling, who spout such ideals as "It ain't cheatin' if you don't get caught" (Jesse Ventura) or "If you're not cheatin', you're not tryin'" (Eddie Guerrero), because, granted, it's funny and a bit of wish-fulfillment of how we wish we could act sometimes. But once I have to apply moral principles to real world scenarios, I stop going for what's funny, and start aiming for what's fair.

Trying to defend PED use on the grounds that "everybody else is doing it and you won't get caught" very much violates that sense of fairness.


Rick

[AtomicDumpling]

Fangraphs article on Braun's connection to Bosch titled Braun’s Explanation on Biogenesis Is Entirely Plausible: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index...ely-plausible/

[jojo]

Originally Posted by AtomicDumpling

Fangraphs article on Braun's connection to Bosch titled Braun’s Explanation on Biogenesis Is Entirely Plausible: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index...ely-plausible/

Yep. But shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

[757690]

Originally Posted by AtomicDumpling

Fangraphs article on Braun's connection to Bosch titled Braun’s Explanation on Biogenesis Is Entirely Plausible: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index...ely-plausible/

That Ryan Braun used Bigfoot as a hitting coach in the offseason is entirely plausible as well

If he did use Bosch solely as a consultant, it more likely was to figure out a way to beat a positive drug test.

[westofyou]

Originally Posted by cincrazy

We keep demonizing guys like Braun, the big names, when in reality, there are dozens, maybe hundreds of guys just like him, right under our nose, doing the same thing. Probably more than a few Reds as well, maybe some we'd never expect. It's the nature of the game today. I don't like it, but good luck policing it. The high-profile guys get picked on and get their reputations wrecked (not saying it's not somewhat deserved), while the lesser-known guys catch hardly any heat at all. Quite the double standard.

Plus many like to pretend that no one ever juiced until 1995 or so, discounting all the baseball hero's they likely had who juiced freely without one worry about being tested.

I love the soap box dragging though, it's always bringing something to the party

[Bumstead]

Originally Posted by 757690

That Ryan Braun used Bigfoot as a hitting coach in the offseason is entirely plausible as well

If he did use Bosch solely as a consultant, it more likely was to figure out a way to beat a positive drug test.

The way Bigfoot swings those trees around in the "messing with sasquatch" commercials suggests that Bigfoot might be able to add some "unexplainable" power numbers to Braun's stat sheet should Braun medicate himself....err...listen properly....

I'm just waiting for all this smoke to turn into fire. Braun's one smokey dude. Probably just coincidence...

Bum

[AtomicDumpling]

I wish more people would really try to figure out the truth instead of going into these topics with their minds already made up.

The PEDs cheaters should be severely punished (even though it is clear that the effects of PEDs have been hugely overblown as has been exhaustively shown by Baseball Prospectus and others). Breaking the rules to gain an unfair advantage is unsportsmanlike and in the case of PEDs can truly harm one's health. Testing should be more frequent and more effective. Get rid of the cheaters so we can stop talking about this issue.

If we are going to severely punish the cheaters, we need to make 100% sure that the people we punish are in fact guilty.

It seems that too many people want to destroy players when the evidence against them is flimsy. That strikes me as totally dishonest and un-American.

How can we make sure that a player's food or drink was not dosed with PEDs by someone else in an effort to get him suspended? How can we be sure that allegations are true? How can we be sure that the testing process is infallible and perfect 100% of the time? We don't want to destroy players if we are not 100% sure they are guilty do we?

There have been over 100 players suspended by baseball for PEDs. Only one of those has successfully appealed his suspension. The arbitrator has ruled against the player in every single case except one. Shouldn't that give you enough pause to at least consider the possibility there were very good reasons for overturning Ryan Braun's suspension?

Since the player is not allowed to appeal the results of the positive drug test, Braun's legal team had to find a violation of the protocol as a means of triggering a hearing in front of the arbitrator. Once the hearing starts the defendant can present all of his arguments for why he should be exonerated. These arguments may include a lot more than just the technicality that violated the testing protocol. My suspicion is that the custody chain of the urine sample was the technicality that triggered the hearing, but was not the main reason why the suspension was overturned. (Remember, the arbitrator never released a report stating why the suspension was overturned -- nobody knows he official reason(s) why he was exonerated. People think they know, but they don't really know.) I believe the real reason is that his test results were astronomically high -- higher than any other test ever run. Twice as high as the next highest sample ever tested according to some sources. That is a real red flag and could indicate a defective test or a spiked sample. How could Braun's test result be twice as high as the East German Olympic weightlifters yet he didn't have any physical, emotional or behavioral side effects? The facts that his sample was mis-handled and the test results were beyond anything ever seen before calls into question whether the sample was tampered with. Who knows what other evidence and arguments were presented at the hearing? It was never made public, so we have no way of knowing. The independent arbitrator Shyam Das obviously felt the evidence to convict Ryan Braun was not sufficient. He ruled to revoke the suspension. This was the first time he had ever ruled in favor of a player. He had ruled against the player in every single hearing prior to Braun's, so you can't claim he was biased in favor of the players. For a professional and independent arbitrator to make an unprecedented decision such as this there must have been a very good reason. For us to insist that Braun was really guilty and just "got off on a technicality" is totally illogical and irrational.

If it turns out that Ryan Braun did in fact use PEDs and it is adequately proven then he deserves to be suspended for a long time without pay and his reputation should be permanently ruined. So far that has not been proven, so it is unfair and dishonest to disparage his character unless and until he is proven guilty. There are plenty of proven PED users to vilify, so far Ryan Braun is not one of them.

Let's make sure our villains are villains before we hang 'em high.

Once they are proven guilty I have no problem with hanging them at high noon in front of the courthouse.