That's a mouthful, Bill.

I did not need to, or desire to, do the research that you did, and the fact that I didn't, does not invalidate my statement. He was guilty, period, and he tried to push the focus onto someone who was NOT guilty. It was like getting caught with your hand in the cookie jar and arguing that your Mother was wearing the wrong pair of glasses when she saw you.

Brian Giles allegedly beat up his pregnant girlfriend, who then miscarried... ON TWO SEPARATE OCCASIONS. Yeah, he belongs right here.

Ryan Braun
Alex Rodriguez
Steve Howe

Except, Braun has never said he took a PED. There is an important distinction between using a PED, a performance enhancing drug used to improve performance, and a banned substance used to expedite healing of an injury. I completely realize that's splitting hairs in the eyes of most baseball fans, but it's an important distinction to Brewer fans. Braun did not take something to cheat the game. Braun's performance on the field, his numbers, the awards he's won, were achieved through his natural ability, and his hard work. He's been tested repeatedly since he was drafted by the Brewers in 2005, all the way through the minor leagues, and in the Majors. Remember the initial story about Braun was that he was going to be suspended for PED use, then the story changed, and Braun was being suspended for a banned substance. That substance still has never been named. Braun only referred to them as a lozenge and cream used to help expedite his rehabilitation. Braun wasn't looking to become a better player, but he was looking to become as close as possible to the player he'd always been.

What did he learn about the collector? That he had been doing that same job since the JDA went into effect in 2005, and was familiar with every Fed Ex location close to Miller Park. They learned that Laurenzi Jr did not do his job as outlined by the JDA, a job he'd been doing for six years at that point. Procedures were very clear-barring any unusual circumstances, he was required to take the biological sample pack to Fed Ex the same day it was collected. He did not.

Is it impugning somebody's character if you say something that is factual? I would say that the collector threw himself under the bus. Again, we know that Braun won his appeal on procedural grounds. That doesn't mean they couldn't have won on scientific grounds, the defense team choose the easiest road to a reversal of the suspension, and they accomplished their intended goal.

Now, again, did Braun cheat? The black and white answer is yes, he did. Absolutely. When Major League Baseball says you can't do x, and you do x, you are breaking the rules. I can spin it any way I want, but I'm not going to do that. Braun broke the rules, and believe me, while I am a Brewer fan, and while I have long been a Ryan Braun fan, I was plenty pissed off at him. I was mad at him when the story first broke that he used a PED (per ESPN). I was more irked at ESPN for printing the story, because if they hadn't violated his rights as established by MLB, we would have never known about this (I still don't know if that's a good or a bad thing). But he broke the rules. Then, he compounded matters by lying about it. I do think he was coached on some of the things he said by his defense team, but ultimately, the buck stops with him. No matter how he was coached, he is a grown man, and responsible for the words that come out of his mouth. If he'd admitted to using the banned substance right away, this whole thing would have washed over by now. It hasn't because he poured more fuel on the fire, and that made me, and a lot of Brewer fans even more angry at him. Remember, as much as you guys dislike Braun now, there are a lot of Brewer fans who have had to listen to all the put downs, not only of Braun, but the Brewers franchise and ownership, too. And there have been a lot of negative things said about Brewer fans, and people in Wisconsin in general. So, trust me when I say that nobody is more sick of this than I am. But as somebody who has had to live with this for over three years, as somebody who has done an awful lot of reading, and research, and separating fact from fiction, the reason I am posting what I am is because much of what has been printed about Braun has been a complete fabrication.

Braun cheated, but lied about it, but people need to understand why he did. The Brewers are a small market team, and we haven't been to the World Series since 1982. Long before this whole mess started, Braun made a commitment to the Brewers, and the people of Wisconsin, that he wanted to bring them a World Series. He has done a lot of good for the people in southeast Wisconsin, and he's invested a lot of his own time, and money, to help improve the city, and help the people that live there. When it became obvious that Prince Fielder was leaving, after the 2011 season, Braun knew they had one shot to get to the World Series. The Brewer front office went all in, and added two front line pitchers. The Brewers were great, and won 96 games. But Braun, who had been battling a severe calf injury all year, was hurting badly by the end of the season. He was not getting better, and he was going to be nowhere near 100% when the post season came around. What he took did help him tremendously. All you have to do is look at the numbers he put up against the Diamondbacks to see that the rehabilitation regiment, combined with the substances he took, did help him heal up. That is why he did what he did, and that is what he said when he admitted fault.

Now, I want to make it very clear that I do not condone what he did. I don't think any Brewer fan worth their own weight would. I love the game of baseball more than anything. I love the game itself even more than I love the Brewers, and I have loved the Brewers for 37 years. Maybe Braun's intentions were good. None of you guys have watched this man play, or watched how he's carried himself throughout his time in Milwaukee like I have. He's been a model citizen, and he's gone above and beyond what the average baseball star would do in the city he plays in. Before the 2011 season, he signed a second extension, which committed him to the Brewers until the 2020 season. He made a lot of money in doing so, but he also took far less to stay in Milwaukee than he would have gotten if he'd signed with the Yankees, or the Dodgers. But, as they say, the path to hell is paved with good intentions. Braun might have made a calculated risk by taking a banned substance in order to heal, and give his team a chance to win the World Series. But he still broke the rules, and no intentions, no matter how good they might be, excuse breaking the rules. If anything, Braun was guilty of making a bad decision. Again, I do not think he tried to cheat the game. Braun has never needed PEDs. All you have to do is watch him play, and see his swing, and the way the ball jumps off his bat, to see that he's a naturally gifted hitter. The guy's got one of the most beautiful swings I've ever seen, and no PED made him into a 5 time Silver Slugger winner, and a three time top 3 MVP finisher.

I was mad at him for a good long time, because he let a lot of people down, myself included. The thrill I got watching him play was something I hadn't felt since Yount was a Brewer. And when he lied, it felt like a slap in the face. But eventually, Braun did the right thing. As he said, MLB never presented the evidence they had. Braun could have fought whatever punitive steps Major League Baseball might have tried to take against him. Their "star witness", Anthony Bosch, certainly was not credible at all. I think ultimately, Ryan just wanted to get out of the viscous cycle he'd created, and come clean. Now, some of you guys will quip "well, he only came clean because he got caught". Well, did he "come clean" the first time? No. If anything, one would think Braun less likely to admit his faults after winning one appeal already. Braun could have fought the Balco investigation, and maybe avoided suspension altogether. But in the end, I think Braun decided to own up to the mistakes he made. Then he went out of his way to make amends with the team ownership, his teammates, and Brewer fans. Now that he's done that, I've decided to give him a second chance. He's not a terrible person. He did some really stupid things, and again, I think the underlying motivation was good, if misguided. Ultimately, the inertia of the situation he created swept him up, and he couldn't get out.

Some people are never going to believe a word he says. That's fine. Every single person has to decide for themselves how they will look at another person. But I think there are a lot of sanctimonious people speaking out against him. People that have probably lied in the past, or done something they wish they could now go back, and handle differently. The difference between them and Ryan Braun is Braun is in the spotlight as a professional athlete, and the people talking crap about Braun on the internet do so under the cover of anonymity the internet creates. I count myself as an ethical person, and honest to a fault. In fact, I've been called a boy scout on more than one occasion. Yet even I have some things I'd like to do over. I am far from perfect, so I'm not going to sit here in judgement over another human being that has admitted the error of their ways. Braun has suffered enough. And as a Brewer fan, I think I have, too.

Braun had synthetic testosterone in his system, quoted to be as high as 20:1 by the Daily News, 16 points above what would trigger a positive test.

How is that not a PED?

Um, Braun has been dealing with numbness in his right hand between the thumb and index finger for well over a year. Living in Wisconsin as you do, Frank, I think you've heard about that. Yeah...

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/201...injury-brewers

His drop in numbers have nothing to do with anything he's taken, or not taken, since testing positive for a banned substance. In the first two weeks of the 2014 season, he had a three home run game at Philadelphia, and a two home run game at Pittsburgh, and probably should have been a member of the NL All Star squad this year, even playing with the injury. Braun was hitting .298 with 19 doubles, 6 triples, 11 home runs, 52 RBI and an .863 OPS at the break. He was top ten in the NL in RBI and OPS.

Oddly, when he quit using banned substances he became a lesser player. How does that work?

Well, if it's a small market team and Braun made a commitment, then I totally get it. We should all pitch in and buy him some more 'healing cream'. It's only right.

So I guess his 2014 numbers were because the world traumatized the guy so much that he couldn't be expected to perform as he had in 'the cream' days?

So as long as a liar admits he lied AFTER he is caught, then it's okay? Even ARod managed to do that.

Braun
 

He is a lying SOS

*when attempting to lessen a scoundrel's actions backfires*

Except, um, no, he didn't become a "lesser player". He tested positive in the post season of 2011. The only time he has ever used. He was tested exhaustively in 2012, and every single test result was clean.

In 2012, he was the National League MVP runner up, even after this whole steroid scandal, even though the Brewers missed the playoffs. Braun hit .319 with 108 runs scored, 36 doubles, 41 home runs, 112 RBI, 30 stolen bases and a .987 OPS. He led the NL in runs scored, home runs, OPS and total bases. He was second in RBI (losing the RBI title on the last day of the season to Chase Headley), and third in batting average. He missed his own triple crown by 2 RBI and 11 points in his batting average. Not exactly what I would call being a "lesser player".

The nerve issue he's been dealing with crept up a few months into the 2013 season. He was hit on the hand by a fastball, and not long after that, Braun started reporting tingling and numbness in his right hand. The numbness caused him to grip the bat handle too tightly, causing his hand to swell, and turn black and blue. He's undergone cryotherapy injections to freeze the nerve cluster causing the issue this off season, and thus far in off season workouts, he's experienced no pain. Here's an excellent article showing how the injury has affected Braun, and how he's had to change his swing to compensate with the loss of feeling.

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/201...injury-brewers

At the time when Braun was hit in 2013, he was having another MVP caliber season. 30 games into the season, Braun was hitting .319 with 8 home runs and 25 RBI. He had a .408 OBP, a .602 SLG, and a 1.010 OPS.

I'm not going to even bother responding to the rest of your post, because you've gone into full smart-ass mode. I've tried responding to your posts rationally, but you no longer want to discuss this in that way. So, have fun.

The levels demonstrated in Braun's sample were more than twice the highest level that had ever been recorded in the history of drug testing for professional athletes. That should be the first clue that there was something amiss with the sample. The chain of custody was never in question. The exact location of the samples was known the entire time. But for 44 hours, how the sample was stored, is unknown.

Will Carroll, who does reporting for Sports Illustrated, did a few articles about the Braun case. The short answer he gives is this:

Basically, he says once it was shown that procedure was not followed, the lab should have never accepted the sample, and certainly no testing should have been done utilizing the sample.

I wish the Shyam Das opinion that overturned Braun's suspension were made public. As Will Carroll stated, Braun did not get off on a technicality. The defense team used science to exactly replicate the test results, and that in part led to the independent arbiter's overturning of the suspension. Like you, though, I am curious how they addressed the synthetic testosterone presence, because at least one of the markers in his sample was clearly exogenous in nature. However, because of confidentiality requirements still affixed to the process, anything else that Braun may have been taking with a therapeutic use exemption could not be disclosed. When the story was (incorrectly) leaked that he was taking something to treat a STD, I thought that he might have had an exemption to use something which contained a synthetic substance.

It's frustrating to me as a Brewers fan not having a complete answer. I want to know everything, but at the same time, I know that's never going to happen, so some of the questions I'm presented with, I'll have to say quite honestly I do not know. It's very hard to know what was accurate, and what was a fabrication, out of all the information that came out. The long and short of it is that we are not owed an answer. We know Braun used a banned substance of some sort. We know he was to be suspended, and he won his appeal. We know that his name (along with that of at least one of his lawyers) was on the lists uncovered in the Balco Investigation. And, we know that Braun was suspended 65 games, and admitted to using a banned substance.

Beyond that, I don't know if I can say I know anything else is a fact not in dispute.

He absolutely is a liar, Al. You will get no argument from me there, and while I am giving him a second chance (something I would give to almost any other person), he has an awful long way to go before I can trust him again. He's going to have to show me a lot. As far as I am concerned, he's on probation. I will cheer for him on the field, because he is a member of our team.

You started it, Bill. I thought that was your preferred mode of communication;however, the above statement was an easy out for avoiding the questions you couldn't respond to intelligently.

Really? Where exactly did I start it? And what question have I not responded to honestly, calmly, and intelligently?

I'm not exonerating Ryan Braun. Far from it. I think I've been pretty clear in my condemnation of his actions. How many times do I have to say that yes, he broke the rules, yes, I have been angry with him, and, yes, he should have been immediately suspended? I'm sorry if I'm not going to let the "Braun sacrificed a man who was doing his job" spiel go without calling it out. He didn't do his job, that's kind of the point. If the collector had done his job, Braun would have been suspended, no? There would have been no procedural grounds for Shyam Das to overturn the suspension. If Dino Laurenzi, Jr had driven the 5 miles to the Fed Ex location on East Wisconsin Avenue, and given the biological pack to the Fed Ex employee as he had done hundreds of times before, Braun would have been suspended. Braun would have never self-righteously lied in front of reporters, and people around the country wouldn't have a seat reserved in the eighth circle of hell for Braun, right next to Adolf Hitler and Judas.

Bill,

When the inquistion starts, defenders end up being burned too. That's just an historical fact.

Scott,

I often agree with you, sometimes not. On occasion, you come across as an asshole. I do too. We probably both need to work on our presentation while staying true to our beliefs. Its difficult to do. Best,

Kenny

I think you took this all way too personally. In response to Kenny, I didn't burn you at the stake for defending Braun - if I lit any matches, it was for your reference that I was posting out of ignorance, which simply wasn't true. The comments about Braun were only about Braun - not about Milwaukee and certainly not about you. Any judging we do of you is based entirely on your posts here - not on the team you support. You seem like a nice enough guy, and you are certainly very studious. I very much appreciate your sharing your research, and that goes for the stuff you posted here about Braun (which I read). But my thoughts about him haven't changed.

I'm also very happy that Kenny and I haven't gotten into it for quite some time :)

Im going with all C's

Comiskey
Curtis
Clemens

Scott,

LOL, as am I.

Hi Bill. What is the distinction? What would you tell the athletes that heal naturally? "Sorry, Dude?"

True confession: Denny McClain May be a scoundrel, but I think he's great. His bio is a great movie waiting to happen and when I read about the stuff he pulled I can't help but chuckle. Be honest, I think most board members have their own favorite scoundrel they can't help but love, for some it might be pete rose, or doc gooden or shoeless joe.

plus guys named Dennis stick together

Ryan Braun Bill convinced me.
Mark McGwire
Kirby Puckett Great guy during playing days, Horrible man afterwards.

"It's possible that no one has ever tested that high in baseball, but Don Catlin, the former director for the Olympic lab at UCLA who is considered the father of performance-enhancing drug testing, said he has seen cases that exceeded 100-to-1. A 20-to-1 ratio, he and others said, is not unusual in a positive test."

http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/...doping-experts

Scott, I apologize profusely. I wasn't meaning to say that you were posting about him out of ignorance, and I tried (unsuccessfully) to clarify that my post wasn't meant to single you out. What I meant to say is your statement about Braun is one that is often made by other people who demonstrate that they are ignorant of the facts, relying solely on a few talking points that have been repeated ad nauseam. Even after things have been proven 100% false--completely devoid of any factual merit whatsoever, like the Jeff Passan article about Braun calling Tulowitzki, Kemp and Votto for support--people still throw that out there at every opportunity. I'm seeing less talk about Braun online now, as this has died down somewhat, but whenever this whole debacle comes up somewhere, invariably the "Braun trashed Laurenzi Jr's reputation, calling him an anti-semitic Cubs fan, and got him fired", or something along those lines still comes up, and it's maddening. It's a lot like when I get into what starts out as a friendly political debate with people online. The world wide web has created an interesting phenomena, the "internet expert". One example I can remember clearly was somebody who didn't have even the most rudimentary grasp of how the legislative branch of our government works calling a professor of political science at Chicago University "an idiot". This guy actually called the tenured professor, who, if my memory serves me correctly, had a PhD in Constitutional Law from Stanford University, an idiot when he pointed out that members of the United States Senate serve six year terms, not four year terms. All I could do was laugh.

But anyway, when I get into really drawn out thoughts, Scott, I sometimes get tripped up, and don't effectively communicate what I am trying to say. I am on so many different medications right now, and they all work together to mess with my head just a little, and sometimes that is enough. Please accept my apology. You are certainly entitled to whatever opinion you may hold. I try to present facts, and let whomever I am speaking with review those facts, and draw their own conclusions.

Hi, Paul.

I would tell any Major League player who is using only approved substances, and employing accepted rehabilitation methods that they are doing it the right way, and that they honor the game they play.

What Braun did was wrong. Ryan Braun may have been the most important player on the 2011 Milwaukee Brewers. In fact, I don't think that's really debatable. But that didn't give him the right to take a substance banned by Major League baseball to expedite his healing. He may be a special talent, but he does not in any way deserve preferential treatment when it comes to the application of the rules established by MLB. The very first time he took something that the League said he could not take, he cheated the game. He sullied his reputation, the reputation of the team, and the franchise. And, he sullied the game itself. What he did is not ok, not in the slightest, and I want to make that absolutely clear. It matters not how he rationalized it. Every year, Major League teams lose players that are vital to the success of the franchise they have been a part of. I can only imagine how Braun felt knowing that his friend, and longtime teammate was leaving. Imagine if you were a baseball player, an MVP caliber player, and your friend and teammate, himself an MVP caliber player, was leaving at the end of the season. Imagine knowing that you had one last shot to win it all with the team the franchise had so carefully constructed. Now imagine that in that final year, you had a calf injury that cause you chronic pain, every single day, and diminished your ability to play baseball at your normal high level. I can only imagine how frustrating that must have been, especially when the months of rehabilitation, and countless meetings with team doctors, and physical therapists were not resolving the issue.

But none of that gives Braun the right to take matters into his own hands, and if he called me up to apologize, I would tell him that I was giving him a chance to redeem himself. But I would also tell him that he disappointed me greatly, and he has a long way to go before I will ever trust him again.

Joel, I don't doubt what this lab director is saying. I was merely reposting what has been repeated numerous times by different news sources. These different media sources have said that Braun's levels were more than twice as high as any other recorded before. Whether that's 20-to-1, or 100-to-1, I am not a scientist. You could hold a gun to my head, and I couldn't tell you what was a high test result, and what was a normal test result. Remember, too, that Braun's first sample underwent two different tests. Perhaps it was the second one showing a 20 to 1 ratio, and the first test was the one demonstrating super high levels?

Here's one of the stories I am referring to, from the New York Daily News:

Ryan Braun’s initial PED test results were ‘insanely high,’ NL MVP’s lawyer insists client did not take PEDs
Outfielder's test results were twice the level of highest test ever taken: source

There is no ratio stated in this report. But I will say that I have seen verbiage quite similar to that which was used in this report several times before, even with specifics as to the levels.

I must also state that I have learned to take anything posted by ESPN, especially by T.J. Quinn, with a grain of salt. They have been out to smear Braun from the very beginning, completely ignoring things that have come out to discredit negative things posted about him (ie the comments made by Joey Votto offering to make his phone records public to prove that he never spoke to Braun on the phone).

In with Jekyll out with Hyde.

A new day is dawning and I'm sure everyone has fresh thoughts on their scoundrels in the closet.

My thought concerns what the list would look like without the PEDiatric scoundrels. Below are the top eleven.

Rose
Cobb
Urbina
Bergen
Anson
Chase
Hall, Mel
Landis
Gandil
Jackson, Joe
Miller, Marvin

Recent history we all have lived through.
Prewar history we live through our cards and collections.

The results of this thread are not surprising and should have been anticipated.

I suggested in the construct of this thread that three scoundrels should be nominated from different eras and perhaps there should have been three lists (or more) to reflect those eras.

I also should have expected a dog fight, to wit arguments for or against any scoundrel could have been limited to 50 words or less (but what fun would that have been).

No changes in midstream rules will be instituted. Que sera, sera?

Did you know that Doris Day is still alive and that her real name is Kappelhoff?

Doris
 

Everyone knows that...but did you know that Albert Brooks is really Albert Einstein.

And I have been to Thailand a couple of times and never got anything from you while there

No way Dave Kingman should be on this list. He's a big teddy bear.

Long live the Sky King!