Thursday, February 7, 2013

Major League Baseball getting another crack at Ryan Braun?

It looks like Major League Baseball may get another chance to punish Ryan Braun for allegedly cheating the game by using performance-enhancing drugs. I bet this time MLB won’t swing and miss.

Bud Selig & Co will do everything possible to make sure that Braun doesn’t get off on a technicality this time, the way he did after testing positive for a banned substance but having the results thrown out because of a supposed procedural error. Braun is on defense already and we should soon expect a press conference where the Milwaukee Brewers outfielder tap dances his way into implying Anthony Bosch somehow was tampering with his records without directly accusing him of doing so, the way he once accused a lowly test taker of tampering with his sample.

It is astonishing that Braun is using his previous battle against the positive test to insulate himself from these latest allegations by claiming his contact with the Florida clinic was part of his fight to clear his name. It seems pretty convenient to me. And if Braun was successful in having the test thrown out, why didn’t he just pay the man who supposedly helped him? I bet Braun now wishes he had paid the amount quoted by Bosch just so he wouldn’t have to deal with this latest mess (and look like an ungrateful deadbeat).

It is even more amazing to me that this latest nightmare comes to light just weeks before Braun is set to represent Team USA in the World Baseball Classic. Didn’t Selig & Co have a way to keep him off the team? Now these allegations are going to follow Braun and the USA team through what should have been a terrific baseball tournament. But Braun’s participation is not going to keep MLB from trying to take him down, if they get the chance.
 
Thanks to Steve Paluch via Wikimedia Commons for the Braun photo.

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