February 23, 2012

Braun Suspension Overturned

Ryan Braun won his fight to overturn a drug suspension:

Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel is reporting that Ryan Braun has won the appeal of his 50-game suspension for taking a banned substance. The MLBPA has confirmed. Immediately after this news broke, Major League Baseball released a statement, printed in full below, saying that while they “vehemently disagree” with the arbitrator’s decision, it will respect the process.

According to Hardicourt’s article, Braun seemed to win on a technicality:

Someone familiar with the decision said the appeal went Braun’s way not so much on contesting the result of the test but the testing process itself, some kind of technicality. And it was arbitrator Shyam Das who decided to rule in favor on that technicality, making it a 2-1 decision by the three-man panel.

Whatever the reason, the ruling was a tremendous boost for both Braun, whose reputation was at stake, and the Brewers, already missing free agent Prince Fielder from their 2011 NL Central championship club. Instead of having to figure out a way to replace Braun for the first 50 games of the season, the team can move forward with its original plans.

Since this is all supposed to be confidential, we may not know the nature of the technicality. Given the leakiness of the process, however, we’ll probably know in a couple of hours.

Update: Remember, we are not supposed to know any of this. A suspension is not supposed to be announced until the appeal process is over. If the leak came from MLB, we now know why. They thought they might lose on a technicality, so they wanted the world to know that Braun was caught with something. I wonder if Braun can sue over the leak?

Update: Braun issued a statement.

Update: See this post for details on the technicality.

10 thoughts on “Braun Suspension Overturned

  1. James

    I would have to hear what the ground was before I believed it was a ‘technicality’. Most of the things that could be wrong with the process (no way to know if the sample was contaminated, sample can’t be definitely linked to Braun,…) are not what I consider to be technicalities — they are defects in the actual evidence. A technicality would be if he definitely tested positive but it turned out he didn’t have proper notice, or something like that.

    But as you say, we’ll probably never know.

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  2. pft

    Lets see, Braun failed 2 separate tests by an accredited lab including a test known as the gold standard, and the arbitrators find him not guilty on a technicality involving the testing process?.

    Is technicality a code for error, or are the arbitrators qualified to judge on published lab test procedures. Maybe it had something to do with sample collection and storage in transit

    I have said before and won’t repeat it that Brauns best defense was probably the fact that diet can influence testosterone levels and give falsd positives for synthetic testosterone.

    Whatever it was, I would think Braun would want to let his fellow union members know about it so they can use the same defense if needed. This might have repurcussions for MLB being able to successfully prosecute a posititve testosterone result if it’s something that can not be corrected easily.

    In the back of my mind, I wonder if Uncle Bud intervened somehow to help his old club, but if he could do that, they could have just ignored the results in the first place, so I am skeptical.

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  3. El Salami Grande

    ESPN now reporting that the technicality had to do with the sample not being shipped as soon as it realistically could have:

    “According to one of the sources, the collector, after getting Braun’s sample, was supposed to take the sample to FedEx Office for shipping but thought it was closed because it was late on a Saturday. As has occurred in some other instances, the collector took the sample home and kept it in a cool place and possibly refrigerated it. Policy states that the sample is supposed to get to FedEx as soon as possible.”

    http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/7608360/ryan-braun-wins-appeal-50-game-suspension

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  4. M. Scott Eiland

    Cue a dozen arrogant little punks with Hall of Fame votes writing columns saying that they’re planning on treating him as guilty when Braun becomes eligible for the Hall. Yet another data point as to why those SOBs need to have their voting privileges stripped.

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  5. El Salami Grande

    Multiple reports have Braun as the “first successful appeal of an MLB drug ban”.
    As David has pointed out, there’s no way of confirming this and I really doubt it.
    Remember that Roger Clemens rumor? When was it… 07?

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