Ryan Braun Appeal: The MVP Without Consequences

Ryan Braun is an embarrassment to Major League Baseball.

Simple as that.  Getting off on a technicality doesn't make you innocent.  It just means you have a good lawyer who found a loophole in the system.  Here are the facts.

(1) Braun was tested for performance-enhancing drugs on Saturday, October 1.

(2) The sample was triple-sealed with tamper-proof seals to ensure no tampering, per MLB and World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) rules.  That means there was a seal on the box, on the bag inside the box and again on the vial that contained the sample.

(3) The official took the sample home because he believed FedEx was closed for the day and did not want to leave it unsecured.

(4) The sample was taken to FedEx when they opened on Monday and shipped out to be tested.  The triple-seals on the sample were not broken or violated in any way.

MLB Executive Vice-President Rob Manfred said, "Neither Mr. Braun nor the MLBPA contended in the grievance that his sample had been tampered with or produced any evidence of tampering."

(5) The tests for PED's came back positive.  Further, tests were conducted on the sample, and the results confirmed the original test.  Ryan Braun had tested positive for using Performance Enhancing Drugs.

Seems pretty cut and dry, doesn't it?  Sample was taken.  Sample integrity was never violated.  Sample tested positive.  Guilty.  50-game suspension for Braun, embarrassment for the Milwaukee Brewers and their star player.  Nothing to do but move on to the 2012 season, right?

Not so fast.

Ryan Braun, who proclaims his innocence to everyone who will listen, gets an appeal.  He claims to the media that he never took any PED's.  That sounds like something an innocent man would say.  However, this is not the story he gives to the MLB.  In fact, on the court proceedings record, he is careful never to say he didn't take PED's. 

Why?  Because that would be perjury.

I think he's guilty.  Everyone knows it, especially Braun and his lawyers.  Their only defense is the official that collected the sample didn't get it to FEDEX quick enough. 

Really?  This is his defense? 

Even though the triple layer of protection against tampering is still in place?  Sounds like a long shot, but it's pretty much all he has.

Crazy enough, it worked.  He was found not guilty because the official took the sample home.  Way to game the system, Braun.  Way to game the media as well.  Let's take a look at how differently Braun explained himself to the media than he did to the MLB.

(BRAUN DEFENSE TO MLB)

(1) The sample was taken home, and the collector's son was with him at the game.

(2) FedEx was open.

(3) I don't know what happened to the sample during that time.

In his appeal, Braun didn't argue evidence of tampering and didn't dispute the science, but argued protocol had not been followed. Multiple sources confirmed to ESPN investigative reporters MarkFainaru-Wada and T.J. Quinn that Braun questioned the chain of custody and collection procedure.

MLB officials argued that there was no question about the chain of custody or the integrity of the sample, and that Braun's representatives did not argue that the test itself was faulty.

Not once to the actual arbitrators or during any official proceedings did Braun deny taking PED's.

(BRAUN TO MEDIA)

"It's B.S."

"The simple truth is that I'm innocent."

"I would bet my life this substance never entered my body."

"I'm the victim of a process that completely broke down."

His sample showed a 20-1 ratio of the two hormones used for testing.  Normal results are 1-1.  To be thorough, they then tested the sample to see if the excess hormones were created naturally or synthetically.  The test came back confirming it was synthetic.

For Ryan Braun to be innocent, the testosterone in his urine would have had to multiply 20 times.  Not only that, but his natural testosterone would have had to develop a way to create synthetic copy of itself that can only come from performance enhancing drugs.

That didn't happen.  What did happen was Ryan Braun got off on a technicality.

The MLB's argument is that while Braun questioned the integrity of his sample in public, he did not do so in his hearing.

He's not an embarrassment because he tested positive.  He's not even an embarrassment because he got caught.  He is an embarrassment because now he is using this not guilty decision to attack the MLB.