Braun knows steroid doubts sure to linger
Brewer decries reputation hit
PHOENIX — National League MVP Ryan Braun won his appeal against Major League Baseball but is still trying to establish his innocence.
The Milwaukee Brewers left fielder, who was facing a 50game suspension, became the first major league player to win his drug appeal last week, at least in part because of procedural error in collecting his urine sample.
Braun, speaking passionately in a 25-minute news conference Friday, insisted that he had never taken an illegal substance and his reputation shouldn’t have been sullied.
“There’s a lot of haters,” he said. “There’s a lot of people who doubt me. . . . I’m not dumb enough to pretend like this is going to go away. I recognize this is a challenge that I’m going to have to face for some time.”
Braun’s credibility might have taken its biggest hit from MLB officials. Rob Manfred, president of labor relations, chastised arbitrator Shyam Das’ ruling and was incensed when Braun called the drug-testing system “fatally flawed.”
“People are now going to question everything that happens, and rightfully so,” Brewers catcher Jonathan Lucroy said. “Even though Braunie cleared this up, this will be attached to him the rest of his life. He’ll be painted with a broad brush that he’s a cheater. And that’s sad.”
Braun submitted a drug test Oct. 1 at 4:30 p.m. local time after the Brewers’ 4-1 home victory against the Arizona Diamondbacks in Game 1 of the NL Division Series. The administrator, identified by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel as Dino Laurenzi Jr., went to a Fedex location that was closed. He stored the sample in his refrigerator for 44 hours before shipping it to a drug testing laboratory in Montreal. The delay, Braun said, allowed ample time for someone to contaminate his sample.
“Why he didn’t bring it in, I don’t know,” Braun said. “Why was there zero documentation? What could have possibly happened to it during that 44-hour period? There were a lot of things that we learned about the collector, the collection process, about the way the entire thing worked that made us very concerned and very suspicious about what could have actually happened. . . .
“We spoke to biochemists and scientists and asked them how difficult would it be to tamper with somebody’s sample. Their response was that if they were motivated, it would be extremely easy.”
MLB vehemently denied that the sample was contaminated, saying none of the three seals was broken when it arrived at the lab. Braun won his appeal, according to MLB, because of a procedural irregularity.
“The extremely experienced collector acted in a professional and appropriate manner,” Manfred said in a statement. “He handled Mr. Braun’s sample consistent with instructions issued by our jointly retained collection agency. The arbitrator found that those instructions were not consistent with certain language in our program, even though the instructions were identical to those used by many other drug programs.
“Our program is not ‘fatally flawed.’ Changes will be made promptly to clarify the instructions provided to collectors regarding when samples should be delivered to Fedex based on the arbitrator’s decision. Neither Mr. Braun nor the MLBPA contended in the grievance that his sample had been tampered with or produced any evidence of tampering.”
Victor Conte, founder of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO), says MLB can avoid problems by using a carbon isotope ratio test, which he said can easily confirm whether synthetic testosterone is discovered in the system.
“If they used this test, they would bust everybody,” Conte said. “There’s no radar to go under, no loophole. They’re not using designer steroids, but they’re using fast-acting testosterone.”
Says Brewers pitcher and player representative Chris Narveson, “We want drug testing. But we just want it done right.”