Over the weekend, ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” reported that Milwaukee Brewers slugger Ryan Braun, named the National League MVP last month, tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug and that he will be suspended for the first 50 games of the 2012 season, pending appeal. It’s unclear what will be said during Braun’s appeal. Maybe there are extenuating circumstances. But those have become harder and harder to believe since Major League Baseball conducted and released the Mitchell Report four years ago. The difference here? Braun has come of age in an era when all minor league players are tested on a routine basis and that culture has filtered up toward the big leagues.
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“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,” MLB commissioner Bud Selig told reporters at the 2009 All-Star Game in St. Louis.
But just because players are tested now and face stiff suspensions — Manny Ramirez, for example — isn’t the same thing as saying the sport is clean. In Olympic sports, athletes are almost always ahead of the testing agencies. North American pro sports aren’t any different. Braun should get the benefit of the doubt — at least until baseball makes the decision official with an announcement.
But as the sport rides the wave of its brilliant postseason, scandals like this one can wipe away the enthusiasm at any time. Milwaukee, after all, is a small-market success story. It developed star players. It took a chance in 2008 and traded prospects for ace pitcher CC Sabathia because it thought fans deserved to see the team push for a championship.
That didn’t work. But the Brewers spent two years retooling and returned with a vengeance in 2011, again refusing to give up on a season by trading pending free agent Prince Fielder. Milwaukee won the NL Central before losing a heartbreaker in the NLCS to St. Louis. Braun, a fan favorite who already signed a long-term deal in Milwaukee, was supposed to be the heart of another quick rebuild. Will the fans there accept him back? Or is this a devastating blow to a revived market?
– Brian McNally
