Out Of Bounds: All Braun And No Brains

As unfortunate as it sounds, it really shouldn’t surprise us anymore when we see celebrities, musicians, athletes, etc., under the influence of drugs. Whether someone’s taking an abundance of prescription drugs, recreational drugs, steroids, female fertility drugs (I’m looking at you, Manny Ramirez), the fact of the matter is that a ton of people are taking substances they know they shouldn’t. But what is surprising is that 2011’s National League MVP, Ryan Braun, reportedly had such high levels of testosterone that it’s the highest that has ever been recorded!

There is no denying that Braun, the 28-year-old left fielder for the Milwaukee Brewers, is a great player. Hell, he’s one of the best in the game. Take away his recent positive test for performance enhancers and we could be looking at a perennial all-star. His legacy, however, is now permanently tarnished in the public’s eye, regardless of whether or not he wins his pending appeal against the league. While you can essentially determine whether or not a player is blatantly juicing, like when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa each miraculously turned into superheroes, Braun’s positive test came out of left field (no pun intended).

Braun has always been the cheery, boisterous guy that appeared to respect the game as much as Derek Jeter. Now fans are lashing out on sites such as Twitter and are referring to him as a cheater and a fraud. There is an ongoing debate as to whether or not to take away his MVP award and give it to the runner-up, Los Angeles Dodgers center fielder Matt Kemp. It is extremely unlikely to happen seeing as how no player has been forced to give back the prestigious award.

The test on Braun was conducted in October during the National League Championship Series, in which his Brewers were squaring off against the St. Louis Cardinals. Braun was then informed about his “insanely high” positive results shortly thereafter. The Baseball Writers Association Of America essentially couldn’t do anything thing about it since they had to hand in their votes before the postseason began. But why can’t they try and make it right?

We’ve seen numerous times how the BBWAA turns away steroid users from being honored. Take for example Big Mac. Needing a 75 percent approval rating from the voters to get into the Hall Of Fame this year, McGwire, the slugger with 583 career home runs, had a dismal 19.8 percent approval rating. The BBWAA clearly doesn’t want to see players crowned for cheating the game. That being said, either a revote should be held if Braun did, in fact, test positive, or the award should be given to the second place finisher, Kemp. While Braun did put up some great numbers this year, perhaps while dirty, Kemp led the league in both homers and RBI, stole a whopping 40 bases, and batted a staggering .324.

Ironically, the NFL had an issue like this just last year, when Bergen County’s own Brian Cushing tested positive for performance enhancers before his ridiculous rookie campaign. He failed the test in September of 2009, a few months before winning the award. A revote was casted less than a week after the story came out. In the end, Cushing was still awarded the Rookie Of The Year, but hey, at least there was a fair process involved.

For whatever reason, the BBWAA appears to be shielding Braun, as they already decided against electing a new recipient of the award. It’s one thing if a player won an MVP many years ago and you can’t do anything about it now but they can’t elect a new winner after this startling revelation came out just a few short weeks after the process was over? It seriously makes me wonder about what would’ve happened had the Brewers gone on to beat the Cardinals and eventually win the World Series led by a player who had aspirations of competing for the World’s Strongest Man. Can you imagine how pissed off the entire state of Texas would be right now had the Rangers lost a seven-game series due to this beast that was juicing?

It really is surprising to see that the MLB is letting the old-timers over at the BBWAA leave Braun as this year’s MVP if, in fact, he did post results that no one has ever seen. But the blame should entirely be given to Braun for basically being an idiot. I’m sorry, allegedly, being an idiot (he’s still maintaining his innocence after all). The MLB is 13-0 when it comes to winning appeals so unless something crazy happens, he’ll most likely sit out 50 games next season. And don’t get me wrong, I wish I could give him the benefit of the doubt because he really seemed genuine but as we’ve seen over and over (and over) again, nobody gets a free pass once they’re found to be artificial.