Ryan Braun MLB's New Anti-Drug Poster Boy

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright July 26, 2013
All Rights Reserved.                                      

             When 79-year-old Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig put down the hammer July 22 on 29-year-old Milwaukee Brewers left-fielder Ryan Braun—2011 National League Most Valuable Player—for violating MLB’s anti-doping policy, the sports media gasped at another superstar going down.  Selig suspended Braun for the remainder of the 2013 season, forfeiting $3.25 million in salary over 65 games.  Minor league MVP in 2006 and MLB rookie of the year in 2007, Braun was touted as the next generation of superstars, replacing the likes of retired San Francisco Giant’s home-run king Barry Bonds or former St. Louis Cardinal and now Los Angeles Angel right-fielder Albert Pujols.  Before beating a steroid rap in 2011, Braun was considered a once-in-a-generation baseball phenom, clutch hitting for power, batting average, slugging percentage, base-running speed and fielding.

             MLB was stunned Dec. 11, 2011 when Braun was accused of failing a urine test, showing significantly elevated levels of testosterone.  Braun categorically denied the charges.  When Braun beat the charge on a technicality in January 2012, MLB breathed easier.  No one realized that a more thorough investigation revealed Braun patronized the Coral Gables, Fl.-based Biogenesis clinic of infamous Anthony Bosch.  Bosch was ratted out by former employee Porter Fischer, whom Bosch stiffed for a petty amount of cash.  “As I have acknowledged in the past, I am not perfect,” Braun said in a statement after his suspension.  “I realize now that I have made some mistakes.  I am willing to accept the consequences of all those actions.  This situation has taken a toll on me and my entire family, and it . . .has been a distraction to my teammates and the Brewers’ organization,” Braun confessed.

             Braun’s doping revelations are oddly reminiscent of the old scandal unearthed by former Oakland Athletic right-fielder Jose Canseco in his 2005 tell-all book, “Juiced:  Wild Times, Rampant ‘Rhoids,’ Smash Hits & How Baseball Got Big.”  Canseco’s book led San Francisco Chronicle investigative reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams to publish their 2006 blockbuster book, “Game of Shadows” exposing baseball trainer Greg Anderson’s involvement with Victor Conte’s Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative [BALCO] supplying Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, etc. with steroids, Human Growth Hormone, erythropoietin [EPO] and other performance-enhancing drugs.  When former seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong refused to contest anti-doping charges in 2012, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency banned him from cycling for life.

             Whatever plea deal Braun made with MLB, it pales in comparison to the outrageous piling on with Armstrong.  Facing a federal False Claims lawsuit asking for Armstrong to return $41 million paid the United States Postal Service cycling team, Braun walked away with a slap-on-the-wrist.  New York Yankee slugger 38-year-old Alex Rodriguez also faces a lifetime ban from MLB connected with his involvement with Bosch’s Biogenesis clinic.  Like the past BALCO scandal that resulted in the 2007 Congressional Mitchell Report naming numerous athletes’ PED abuse, the latest Biogenesis scandal is likely to name far more athletes than Braun and Rodriguez.  Calling for Braun to get a lifetime ban, Dodger Jared Michael “Skip” Schumaker said MLB didn’t do enough.  “He lied to a lot of people.  I was convinced, after that MVP, that he didn’t do it,” expecting harsher punishment.

             Whether you’re disgusted or not with Braun’s behavior, he violated MLB’s current anti-doping policy.  For years, MLB turned a blind eye, in part because the Players Assn. believed ballplayers had a right to privacy with their doctors.  Braun wasn’t accused of using heroin or some other illicit drug.  While Braun copped to using HGH and Sermorelin—a potent testosterone booster—other athletes in the BALCO era used less detectable testosterone boosters, like chemist Patrick Arnold’s tetrohydrogestrinone AKA “the Clear.”  While professional sports was pressured by Congress into adopting strict anti-doping policies—especially since the 2007 Mitchell Report—amateur and pro athletes have used Benzedrine and other stimulants to crank-up their athletic performance.  Claiming that older generations of athletes never used less sophisticated PEDs just isn’t true.

             Whether you agree or disagree with today’s anti-doping policies in professional and amateur sports, athletes always seek the latest medical and scientific edge for competition.  Calling Braun or Armstrong  “cheaters” overstates the case against athletes for using FDA-approved drugs to help boost performance and recovery from injury.  If licensed physicians prescribe FDA-approved “steroids” for muscle fatigue, joint weakness or pain, it doesn’t violate anti-doping policies.  When those same drugs are prescribed to boost performance, it crosses the line.  Over 40-years ago, European athletes gave themselves blood transfusions, something banned by today’s anti-doping rules.  No one stripped 1972, 1976 Finnish Olympic 5K and 10K gold medallist Lasse Virén for blood doping.  Yet cancer survivor and seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong was tarred-and-feathered.

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com.and author of Dodging the Bullet and Operation Charisma.