Former National League MVP Ryan Braun was suspended without pay for the rest of the season and the postseason Monday, the first penalty from baseball's investigation of players reportedly tied to a Florida clinic accused of distributing performance-enhancing drugs.I must say I find this situation more exasperating than I would have originally thought. After all, I am a Cardinals fan and I lived through the Mark McGwire years. However, when that whole era was going down there already was the sense that something wasn't exactly right. When it exploded as a drug fueled myth no knowledgeable fan could be exactly surprised.
The Milwaukee Brewers star accepted the 65-game penalty, 15 games more than the one he avoided last year when an arbitrator overturned his positive test for elevated testosterone because the urine sample had been improperly handled.
"I am not perfect. I realize now that I have made some mistakes. I am willing to accept the consequences of those actions," he said in a statement.
But that was all in the past, right?
When Ryan Braun signed his huge contract extension, choosing to stay with the small market club that established his name rather than chasing big money in a bigger market, I bought into the "feel good" storyline of it all. As a result I feel like nothing but a sucker today.
But really it is worse than that. Braun, in attempting to cover his ass nearly two years ago when he failed a drug test, absolutely trashed the reputation of the poor technician who handled that test. Basically Braun accused the tech of tampering with his urine sample. We now know Braun had a wider history of attempting to skirt baseball's drug policies. In the light of today's admission of guilt by Braun, the sumbag quality of that earlier denial has become unavoidable.
Braun should apologize to everyone whose integrity he so cynically attacked.
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