"Close pent-up guilts,
Rive your concealing continents, and cry
These dreadful summoners grace. I am a man
More sinn'd against than sinning."
--Shakespeare King Lear
Ryan Braun is guilty.
Well, he’s certainly not innocent, so that makes him guilty. I mean that’s how baseball works now,
right?
The story of Braun’s impressively positive test, at least in
Wisconsin and among Brewers fans, has sparked outrage, vehement defense, and
some good puns. There is a strong
movement to have Braun declared “Braunicent”. People want to refute the idea that he might have been
“Jew-cing”. But if Braun did use
PEDs a friend put it best saying, “This sheds a whole new light on ‘beast
mode’.”
The sad truth is that Braun’s innocence is of little
consequence now. Remember Barry
Bonds and Roger Clemens? Every
person reading this “knows” that those two men are guilty of using PEDs;
nevermind that neither man failed a test.
Peripheral truths like Bonds’s ever-expanding cranium or Clemens’s
ability to outpitch the world in his 40s have been enough to convict.
The case of Braun’s positive test isn’t going to be tried in
any type of legal court in America, either. Instead it will be tried in the court of public opinion,
where guilt is assumed and innocence must be proved.
Braun has a better chance to have his positive test
overturned than anyone before him.
If you believe the leaked sources, that is.
If the test is confirmed, he’s a juicer and the 2011 MVP is tainted. It would be hard to believe that he’s
the only trophy-sporting PED user.
If the test is overturned, however, the precedent that would
be set could have disastrous results.
The most immediate would be that Roger Clemens would be back in the news
parading his innocence before you finished reading the alert on your cell
phone. I am was a Clemens
fan and even I don’t want that. The
longer lasting result could be that players who need to use PEDs to maintain a
major league caliber of play might become brave enough to chance it more openly
should there exist a possibility of overturned tests for any reason. Baseball is not in the business of
setting those kind of precedents if they can help it.
Baseball is traditionally an either/or sport. After too many probable steroid users
cried ignorance, MLB decided to implement these testing policies and the harsh
punishments as a means of forcing players to understand what they were putting
in their bodies. The gray areas of
supplement manufacturing and body biochemistry be damned, when MLB tests your
pee you’re either juicing or you’re not.
Regardless, Braun remains in an unenviable position. That the confidentiality of his test
results, as well as that of countless others before him, was breached is disheartening. What’s worse is that Braun’s most
positive option is actually to admit that he’s guilty whether he is or
not. America will forgive your
transgressions, just ask A-Rod.
Braun’s other choice is the specter of possible PED use hanging over his
career forever. Don’t believe that
even if MLB reverses the decision Braun’s image will escape untarnished.
Who’s to blame for this sad reality? Everyone.
The players, after all, were the ones who started using PEDs.
MLB seems to believe that, in its world at least, testing is
always conclusive and infallible.
Tell that to an America where pharmaceuticals that cure one condition
can cause twenty others (and death is somehow always among them). It’s insane to expect every person’s
body to react exactly the same to everything that is ingested, but that is
exactly what is written between the lines of baseball’s drug testing
policies. That one of MLB’s tests
can’t be botched is also an idea treated with the sanctity of scripture. The test subject is fallible but the
test is crystal clear in its findings.
That approach has worked real well for No Child Left Behind, hasn’t it?
The biggest problem with Braun’s case is the speed with
which the baseball media turned on him.
Within minutes of the leak, Buster Olney had a voiceover segment on ESPN
that basically condemned Braun. He
then spent time debating the possibility of revoking Braun’s MVP award. Because that’s what baseball writers
do. They have the power to mold a
player’s image into whatever they wish, they have the power to keep you from
the hall of fame, and because that’s all they have they wield those powers
dictatorially. Not once did Olney
question the system, not once did he attempt to explain the nuances of
baseball’s alternate reality. When
an interpreter – and a knowledgeable one at that – could have put his skills to
use he simply reported.
I understand and so does
Buster. He knows who signs his
checks. That doesn’t do much to allay my disappointment. And it
sure as hell isn’t going to make things any easier for Braun. Guilty or Braunicent.
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If you haven't yet, please also check out Jonah Keri's article on Grantland about Braun.
