Braun tests positive for PEDs.

[p_rushing]

Re: Braun tests positive for PEDs.

It depends on what he was taking.

From the sounds of it, he was taking a testosterone booster which from my experience, isn't going to help you hit a baseball in any way. The only thing it really helps out with is muscle recovery and your energy.

Either way, it's banned. He should have known the rules.

Having muscles that recovery faster will allow you to hit a baseball as you won't be as tired and won't need as many days off. It won't help you if you were fully rested and took to compare your results, but it will definitely help throughout a season.

[roadman]

Re: Braun tests positive for PEDs.

Well, I'd rather hear both sides before I say, from the sounds of it, from this source, from that source, right now, beyond the first test, it's all hearsay.

I just can't fathom he would be that naive to not look at the labels. I mean, let's say, that he took a supplement, read the ingredients and there wasn't any ingredient on the list that is banned by MLB, but it shows up in the test. Heresay coming again, but, there are reports that his test was 4 times higher than what they consider a positive test. That's a awful high test and a few weeks later, he test negative? How can all that leave your body within two weeks when steroids stay in your system 7-10 days.(yes, I know that is less than 2 weeks, but consider the abnormally high amount)


He sounds like he's aggressively fighting it, hiring a good sports lawyer.

In the end, if he is guilty, I agree, he needs to pay the price, whether it's 50 days or 25 days. I just don't know if he is guilty or not at this time.

[Dog]

Re: Braun tests positive for PEDs.

It depends on what he was taking.

From the sounds of it, he was taking a testosterone booster which from my experience, isn't going to help you hit a baseball in any way. The only thing it really helps out with is muscle recovery and your energy.

Either way, it's banned. He should have known the rules.

Having muscles that recovery faster will allow you to hit a baseball as you won't be as tired and won't need as many days off. It won't help you if you were fully rested and took to compare your results, but it will definitely help throughout a season.

Bingo. <url>

[SidVish]

Re: Braun tests positive for PEDs.

I don't think anyone who has tested positive has had their test overturned so I fully expect Braun to serve his suspension no matter what his excuse.

Athletes know what they're taking and if they don't then they're really not that bright.

[roadman]

Re: Braun tests positive for PEDs.

And this article pretty much nails where I stand.

His lawyer is the same one J.C. Romero used to sue the retailers and the two different companies of the stuff he ingested. mmm Romero thought he knew what he was taking, too. Dumb, hardly.

http://www****online.com/sports/brew...135551923.html

Since no player has successfully appealed a positive performance-enhancing drug test, it's hard to trust Ryan Braun right now.

But because baseball apparently isn't against making examples of its stars as perhaps a way of compensating for its casual attitude during the Steroid Era, it's hard to trust the game's drug-testing procedure, too.

So what if this were all one big mistake?

No one wants to believe a baseball player anymore because of the way a few conducted themselves before Congress. But what if Braun's handlers are telling the truth, that their client is innocent?

What if Braun is merely the victim of circumstance? What if, for example, in being treated for a medical condition instead of trying to give himself a competitive advantage at his job, Braun put something in his body that made the dope-testing machines flip like Ozzie Smith?

Apparently it's never happened before, but baseball has been known to crank out an unprecedented occurrence every now and then.

But even if that were the case, Braun should have known better during a time of reactionary crackdowns in baseball.

I don't care if it's a Tic Tac or a Big Mac, anything a baseball player ingests these days should be checked and double-checked by team or MLB reps. That is the cautionary price everyone pays for the fraudulent home run races that once spun the turnstiles and filled the tills.

Braun and baseball have been embarrassed by the way the news got out before either side was prepared to deal with the bombshell. There is nothing to do now except wait on more definitive results.

In the meantime, if Braun wasn't wronged by the system, we're left with this philosophical wresting match:

Why would he have taken such a risk?

Braun has the squeakiest of clean reputations in this town, and all over baseball, for that matter. As a top-shelf player who has committed himself to essentially a career-long contract with the Brewers and a businessman who has invested in Milwaukee, why would he jeopardize his golden-boy reputation?

Nothing has been proved, but already discussion has begun on reopening the vote on his National League MVP award. Why would he possibility subject himself to such public embarrassment?

He has uncanny hand-eye coordination. PEDs couldn't help him make contact with a baseball any better than the rare qualities nature bestowed upon him. OK, so maybe he could have driven the ball farther. And there would be a quicker recovery time for those occasional injuries Braun has suffered.

There is the practical, if not cynical, viewpoint posted in a blog by former MLB pitcher Dirk Heyhurst, who is no Ryan Braun. Yet Heyhurst might not be stretching it when he contends that crime still pays in baseball.

"It sure does," he wrote. "If it didn't people would be less inclined to commit it." Other players might think that way, but I don't believe Braun is so self-absorbed that he would trade a couple of months back home in Malibu while his teammates sunk without their best player.

Braun came up as a cocky kid, but since becoming the face of the franchise he has been careful to never publicly put himself above the team. He took a below-market contract to keep him in a Brewers' uniform essentially for life, but still it is more than $135 million guaranteed over the next decade we're talking here.

Nevertheless, it has not been in Braun's personality to coast. He works longer and harder at his craft than most players I've seen, in spite of his riches. He left money on the table. These are not characteristics of someone looking for a shortcut.

That's why I'm still willing to give Braun the benefit of the doubt. This could all be one big mistake. Time will tell.

[ImTellinTim]

Re: Braun tests positive for PEDs.

You can spin it however you want. Pretty convenient mistake to have a synthetically elevated level of testosterone in the playoffs. When players are trying to play at their highest level and their bodies have been through the rigors of a long season. It stinks to the high heavens.

[WazzuRC]

Re: Braun tests positive for PEDs.

Why would he have taken such a risk?

To get an edge, just like every single professional athlete that's ever lived.

And to your point about how no one believes baseball players, that's because no baseball player has ever been proven innocent.

[Bellsprout]

Re: Braun tests positive for PEDs.

2 things:
1) That "no player has ever successfully had this overturned" thing is a crock of ****. Normally the process is anonymous, and plenty of people in the last few days have said, in fact, that people have won their appeal.

I would highly, highly suggest reading this: http://brewersfandemonium.yuku.com/s...s#.TumW0TWPVLc

2) That said, I'm still like 65/35 guilty.

[roadman]

Re: Braun tests positive for PEDs.

To get an edge, just like every single professional athlete that's ever lived.

Sorry, I'm not buying that.

He has everything to lose and nothing to gain from testing negative for 9 consecutive years.

Out of the clear blue, he has a positive test that is 4 times more than the normal positive test?

Still a lot to question in all of this.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article****p?ymd=20111213&content_id=26155860&vkey=news_mlb&c_id=mlb

The phone call -- and the accusation -- shocked Katin.

"It was jaw dropping," Katin said Tuesday in a phone interview. "It was completely out of the blue. Things are going through your mind -- what could've possibly done this? -- and luckily for me, it all worked out in the end."

Katin, 28, was told he would be suspended for 50 games, and he appealed the findings. Two months after he got that phone call the suspension was overturned, making him the only ballplayer who has successfully appealed. Katin is hoping his former University of Miami teammate, Ryan Braun, will be the second.

In Katin's case, his first sample came back with a high level of testosterone.

"They assumed I was on something," he said.

In 2007 in the Minor Leagues, players would submit two urine samples -- marked "A" and "B." Katin was notified that he tested positive for high levels of testosterone, and he said the "B" sample was then tested for synthetic drugs. It came back negative. Now, if a player has a high level, Major League Baseball will automatically test for synthetic drugs before contacting the player.

"If I hadn't appealed, I imagine they would have never tested me for actual synthetic steroids," Katin said. "It would've been a positive for my high levels of testosterone. They come at you like that, and if I was actually using something, I would've said, 'OK, I got caught.' But since I wasn't using anything, I appealed."

Katin's agent filed the appeal, and the samples were tested for performance-enhancing drugs. None turned up. But it took two months before Katin got a phone call with the news that he had known all along: He was clean.

"It was extremely frustrating," Katin said. "I don't know why it took so long, but unfortunately it did."

Katin was allowed to play during his appeal.

"The worst part is I was playing every day with this hanging over my head," he said. "I think I was hitting .200 during that stretch."

Katin's positive test didn't send shock waves through baseball, as Braun's did. His Huntsville teammates knew, but that was it.

"I've been accused of [taking PEDs] my whole career because I'm a power hitting guy and weigh 230 pounds," Katin said. "People were like, 'Finally the truth comes out,' when it was me, and I'm like, 'C'mon guys.' When the final results were in, there was nothing. I had to deal with [accusations] for two months. It was extremely frustrating.

"It was definitely a difficult time in my life, just sitting there waiting, and there was nothing I could do," he said. "I was waiting for the final results."

He got the news when the Huntsville trainer handed Katin a piece of paper as he was boarding a bus for a game in Chattanooga.

"It said, 'Congratulations, you won your appeal,' and pretty much, that was it," Katin said.

He never got an explanation for the high levels of testosterone, but said it may have been caused by having a few drinks the night before the test.

Katin and Braun were teammates at Miami -- Braun played third then -- and also in the Brewers' system. Last year, Katin batted .239 with 11 homers in 34 games for Milwaukee's Triple-A team in Nashville. Braun had an MVP season with the Brewers, leading them to the National League Central title. He's appealed his 50-game suspension.

Katin's future is uncertain. He's scheduled for surgery in January on his right knee to repair the meniscus, and hoping to come back and try again in 2013.

He hasn't reached out to Braun.

"Not at all," Katin said. "I'd just let it take its course. It's obviously on a much higher scale. When I was appealing, nobody even knew about it. [Braun's case] has been out in public. Everybody knows about it."

He does empathize with Braun. Katin's been there.

"I feel like when it's all said and done, he'll be in the clear," Katin said of Braun. "I really believe that.

"I think anybody who knows him knows he's telling the truth," Katin said.

[Dog]

2 things:
1) That "no player has ever successfully had this overturned" thing is a crock of ****. Normally the process is anonymous, and plenty of people in the last few days have said, in fact, that people have won their appeal.

I would highly, highly suggest reading this: http://brewersfandemonium.yuku.com/s...s#.TumW0TWPVLc

2) That said, I'm still like 65/35 guilty.

Jimmy Rollins Tweeted that 'officially no case has been overturned but I know of one that no one will ever hear about'

Sent from Dog World

[Dog]

Roadman, I think you are looking at this through dark blue Brewers glasses--and I'm not saying that in a bad way, because I was the same way with J.C. Romero, a guy who was one of my favorite players at the time. Braun has to be guilty until proven innocent, and the synthetic testosterone doesn't help his cause

Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk

[roadman]

Re: Braun tests positive for PEDs.

Roadman, I think you are looking at this through dark blue Brewers glasses--and I'm not saying that in a bad way, because I was the same way with J.C. Romero, a guy who was one of my favorite players at the time. Braun has to be guilty until proven innocent, and the synthetic testosterone doesn't help his cause

Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk

Nope, sorry, I know the odds are stacked against him and I've said throughout the thread, that he is guilty until proven innocent.

I just want to hear his side of the story and why I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Unfortunately, he isn't allowed to give his side of the story until the arbitration is played out.

[WazzuRC]

Re: Braun tests positive for PEDs.

Sorry, I'm not buying that.

He has everything to lose and nothing to gain from testing negative for 9 consecutive years.

Out of the clear blue, he has a positive test that is 4 times more than the normal positive test?

Still a lot to question in all of this.

I'm not saying Braun is guilty or innocent. I actually really like Braun and hope it's a false positive. The last thing the MLB needs right now is it's newly crowned MVP busted for PED's.

How can you not buy that every athlete ever is looking for that edge? Whether it be HGH, steroids, different weight training regimens, diets, etc. You act like Braun is the only one ever to test positive with everything to lose and nothing to gain. Any athlete that takes these has everything to lose whether it be their legacy, their health, or the risk of getting banned games.

[roadman]

Re: Braun tests positive for PEDs.

I'm not saying Braun is guilty or innocent. I actually really like Braun and hope it's a false positive. The last thing the MLB needs right now is it's newly crowned MVP busted for PED's.

How can you not buy that every athlete ever is looking for that edge? Whether it be HGH, steroids, different weight training regimens, diets, etc. You act like Braun is the only one ever to test positive with everything to lose and nothing to gain. Any athlete that takes these has everything to lose whether it be their legacy, their health, or the risk of getting banned games.

I didn't mean I wasn't buying the part about any athlete getting an edge, I agree with that part, but I don't feel Braun is guilty of trying to gain an edge taking a PED. I'm hoping he is smarter than that.

No, and I'm not acting like Braun is the lone ranger in nothing to gain, everything to lose. It just doesn't add up for me with Braun, that's all I'm saying. He's the clubhouse leader for the Brewers, he hasn't tested positive in 9 years and then all of a sudden, out of the clear blue sky, he test positive. That's what I'm not buying. If I'm wrong waiting to hear Braun out, I'll admit it.

Bottom line for me, I'm waiting to hear Braun's side through the arbitration process. It doesn't look good, but I'm willing to hear his side even if there is only a slim chance he will be exonerated.

[ImTellinTim]

Re: Braun tests positive for PEDs.

You know what doesn't happen out of the clear blue sky though? Synthetically elevated levels of testosterone. Even if he didn't know what he was taking, he's still in the wrong. Now he can sue the makers of whatever he took, but the fact remains, he is in violation of the rules. If it really was an honest mistake (again, how convenient of all these guys to go to that same tired excuse), that's still on him because you better know exactly what you're getting into.

I know you're having a hard time wrapping your head around why he would do it, roadman, but the mentality of these superstars who have been placed on a pedestal their entire lives is that they are above the law and won't get caught. I personally think he took a calculated risk, and it bit him in the ***. He was feeling the long season and needed a little something to pick him up for the playoff stretch.