Ryan Braun suspended for remainder of season

Braun made good on the promise he made earlier this week to open up about his PED use. He is currently serving a 65-game suspension handed to him by Major League Baseball. Braun explained his decision not to appeal the suspension in the statement, saying that he came to grips with his violation of MLB policy in June before even hearing MLB’s evidence against him.

Braun also apologized to sample collector Dino Laurenzi Jr., the man who collected Braun’s positive urine sample in 2011. That sample sparked controversy when it was revealed that Laurenzi did not properly deliver the sample for testing, leading to disparaging remarks from Braun in the aftermath.

The positive test on Braun’s urine in 2012 was initially going to cost the outfielder 50 games for violating the league’s drug policy, but he was let off the hook due to a chain-of-custody error during the process. Laurenzi had kept Braun’s urine sample stored in his house because there was no FedEx store close by to ship the sample in accordance with MLB rules. Despite assertions from the lab that the sample wasn’t tainted, Braun’s lawyers successfully argued that the chain of custody was broken and their client should have his suspension revoked.

Braun has since been suspended for the rest of the 2013 season due to his links to Biogenesis, a company which has provided performance-enhancing drugs to more than a dozen major league players. The Brewers star is expected to publicly come clean about his drug use in the near future.

Ralph Sasson, 29, also accuses Braun of taking steroids while at the University of Miami, committing academic fraud, and accepting money while he was still a college athlete. Sasson says that he was contacted in 2011 and tasked with the job of doing research on Dino Laurenzi, Jr., the tester that conducted Braun’s positive PED sample.

Braun’s attorney Howard Weitzman said in a statement that the case has “no merit”:

“I was shocked, I really was, just like many of you were,” Rodgers said. “It doesn’t feel great being lied to like that and I’m disappointed in the way it all went down”

Rodgers added that Braun “looked [him] in the eye on multiple occasions” and denied that there was any truth to the allegations of PED use. Rodgers had been an outspoken defender of Braun in public settings and was so confident in his friend’s innocence he once told a fan he’d bet his 2013 salary that Braun is clean.

Steroid fatigue is a real thing, I think, among baseball fans. We’ve been doing this -- with the hunting down and the testifying before Congress and the lying and eventual suspensions -- for nearly 10 years. Given that, it’s hard to blame any fans who cannot work up any outrage about Ryan Braun’s “admission” and suspension for what MLB called “violations of the Basic Agreement and its Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program” in a press release for their apathy.

That’s a shame, though, because there is something in this story worth being angry about for the common fan: Ryan Braun’s statement. You’ve all seen it 100 times on the news already, but let’s post it here just for reference.

Ryan Braun might be a lot of things. He’s almost certainly a “liar“ (and a fraud), as Steven Goldman said here yesterday. He could be all sorts of other awful things.

What he’s certainly not, though, is any more guilty this morning than he was the morning before that of the violation with which he was charged more than a year and a half ago.

Braun asked for the support of his teammates last season and told them that he didn’t used PED’s, according to Passan. The Brewers are now mad that Braun lied to them about his situation.

The outfielder gave an emotional speech following his discussion with his teammates last year. Braun offered a number of quotes to reporters that now appear dishonest. He said, “I truly believe in my heart and would bet my life that the substance never entered my body at any point,” for example. Also: “We were able to get through this because I am innocent and the truth is on our side.”

Major League Baseball suspended the outfielder for the remainder of the season on Monday, a total of 65 games. MLB compiled “extensive evidence” against Braun, according to Quinn.

The evidence against Braun led the outfielder to strike a deal with MLB. MLBPA director Michael Weiner told the New York Daily News last week that the union would not fight for any players who might be suspended when faced with overwhelming evidence that they used PEDs.

Rodriguez is all but assured of receiving a suspension, sources familiar with the investigation told Jon Heyman of CBS Sports. The third baseman may receive a suspension longer than the typical 50-game ban for first-time offenders, as charges against Rodriguez may include interfering with the investigation, writes Quinn.

MLB suspended Braun for the remainder of the season on Monday, a total of 65 games. Rodriguez has never been suspended for PEDs in the past, but he did admit to failing an MLB survey test in 2003.

When the hammer dropped, it came swiftly and unequivocably: Ryan Braun, former National League MVP Award-winner, was suspended without pay on Monday for the balance of the 2013 season (65 games). Braun agreed not to contest the suspension, making a cryptic statement acknowledging “some mistakes.” This was in bold contrast to the denials Braun issued at the time he first came under public suspicion of using banned substances in December 2011. After an arbitrator overruled his suspension due to chain of custody issues involving collector Dino Laurenzi Jr., Braun said, “If I had done this intentionally or unintentionally, I’d be the first one to step up and say, ‘I did it’ ... By no means am I perfect, but if I’ve ever made any mistakes in my life I’ve taken responsibility for my actions. I truly believe in my heart and I would bet my life that this substance never entered my body at any point.”

I think we can issue a correction on that now, Ryan. Clearly “this substance” did in fact enter your body. Given how assiduously Braun fought to save his reputation the first time around, it seems clear that there is no way he would have capitulated to MLB’s justice if the evidence against him was not serious and undeniable.

Ryan Braun successfully appealed a suspension in 2012, but that won’t be the case this time around as Braun admitted to making some mistakes and apologized to fans following the news that he would be suspended for the rest of the 2013 season.

According to a release from MLB, Braun was suspended for violations of the basic agreement and its joint drug prevention and treatment program. He’s been tied to the Biogenesis PED scandal and admitted to previously making some mistakes. While he did not directly admit to using performance-enhancing drugs, Braun said he would accept the consequences of his actions.

After months of investigation by MLB into the relationship between Biogenesis owner Anthony Bosch and a number of players, an announcement of suspensions was expected eventually. However, this comes as a relative surprise given that some believed the commissioner’s office would wait to begin handing out punishments until after the season.

As part of the announcement, MLB executive vice president Rob Manfred said the following:

According to CBS, Biogenesis-related appeals are only possible if players were charged without receiving positive tests for performance-enhancing substances.

The foundation of MLB’s investigation comes from testimony from Biogenesis’ former proprietor, Tony Bosch, who is informing the league of the case’s details. It’s expected that around 15 players could be suspended.

Major League Baseball is investigating more players in the Biogenesis scandal than just those that have been publicly linked to the defunct Miami-area clinic, sources have told Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports.

Passan didn’t name any specific players or say how many other players are currently under investigation, but reported sources have said that the MLB is not finished interviewing players under investigation. That alone makes any hope of an expedited process unlikely.

Still, Wednesday’s confirmation that Rodriguez’s exile was (Selig pending) just a weird media wet dream felt like the fabled 12^th of Never had finally arrived, the day when Hell freezes over. If some part of you suspects that Rodriguez will show up for the Yankees’ game at Texas on Monday only to find an empty clubhouse because ownership decided to take the team into hiding and forfeit the rest of the schedule rather than associate with this strangely self-defeating athlete, yes, the thought is irrational, but no, you’re not alone.

The foregoing contains an assumption about Rodriguez’s ability to play the field, one based not only on the fact that, having had both hips operated on, he is now seemingly two doors short of a sedan. Even when healthy, he was hardly Graig Nettles at third base. Belying his history as a Gold Glove-winning shortstop, he was merely adequate. He’s now 37 years old and roughly 10 months removed from his last appearance on a major-league field. At this point, the arrow of time, and that of ballplayer skill along with it, only goes in one direction. As John Lennon said in “Revolution 9,” “Every one of them knew that as time went by they’d get a little bit older and a little bit slower.” (Also, “There’s this Welsh Rarebit wearing some brown underpants,” but that’s not germane in this case.) It is possible that post-vivisection A-Rod will combine with Derek “Ankles Aweigh!” Jeter to form a range-free no-man’s land on the left side of the Yankees infield, where no ground ball need fear being deflected while making its merry, hippity-hop way to the outfield.

Because the Biogenesis scandal hasn’t taken enough weird turns over the last six months, it decided to take a hard left turn into unknown territory on Tuesday. MLB Players Association director Michael Weiner spoke to the media before the All-Star Game Tuesday afternoon, explaining that the pending suspensions of MLB players tied to the PED clinic are not bound to the normal three-strike, 50-100-life punishment scheme because they don’t stem from positive drug tests, reports Bill Brink of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Weiner indicated that, in theory, the players in question “could be suspended for 5 games or 500,” per Danny Knobler of CBS Sports, seemingly because of the ambiguity involved in the Joint Drug Agreement’s terms on how to deal with players who have not failed a drug test. Section 7.A of the JDA lays out the three-strike punishment scheme for players who have either tested positive or found to be in possession of PEDs, leaving a big gray area in the “we-found-your-name-in-a-notebook” region. Why this very important point hasn’t come up before is unclear.

In a story on doping in track and field published on Monday, Mary Pilon of the New York Times wrote, “With races determined by fractions of a second, runners have long looked to any advantage -- banned or not. The prize of international fame and the riches that come with it have created a cat-and-mouse game that shows no sign of slowing.”

Conversely, the most we can say of players like Alex Rodriguez is that they have broken the rules and attempted to cheat -- this is the administrative cheating spoken of earlier -- but it is far from clear that they actually cheated in the sense of artificially altering the outcome of games. In concert with the Players Association, MLB has established a system of escalating punishments for use of so-called performance-enhancing drugs: a 50-game suspension for a first violation, 100 games for a second, and permanent suspension (with a right to ask to be reinstated after a minimum of two years away) for a third. If a player, be it Alex Rodriguez or anyone else, is caught using, he or they should be subject to those penalties. However, breaking the rule is not equivalent in any real sense to what the Black Sox did. The fact that Baseball may be pursuing these players, as if they threatened the game in the same way, suggests a loss of perspective.

Suspensions for players connected to Biogenesis are allegedly going to occur after the All-Star break.

• Derek Jeter is hurt again

You might be tempted to say, “Hey, players disappear from the races all the time. We call that ‘injuries.’” Yes, injuries do happen, but those are, for want of a better term, acts of God. We have no control over when someone’s hamstring is going to tear or their elbow explode. The timing of these penalties are purely discretionary. They can be administered at any time -- in the offseason, for example, when teams and their general managers can arrange adequate replacements for the banished players.

Surely that is not a memory Commissioner Selig wants to evoke at this late date, or at any time, during the remainder of his reign. No comparably severe betrayal of the fans has taken place that would allow for Major League Baseball to countenance its own betrayal in kind. Baseball’s rules, its Joint Drug Agreement, have been broken, yes, but that is all -- despite the predominant narrative of PEDs and baseball, even if there is convincing proof that the players attempted or intended to cheat, there will never be any evidence that they actually succeeded in doing so.

Cases against alleged offenders began to be put together last month once the Biogenesis owner decided to provide MLB with key evidence.

At this point, Quinn and Fish say the looming question is how long these suspensions might last.

Sources close to MLB’s investigation allege that Fischer has been under constant pressure for the past six months from private investigators who want to get their hands on the records he owns from the Biogenesis clinic. The former employee also believes that some of the players involved in the scandal hired these private investigators.

Fischer has also received some alleged death threats, per TMZ.

Say what you will about the Biogenesis PED scandal, it’s certainly not lacking in shady dealings. The investigation took another step into the realm of the weird and uncomfortable on Tuesday, as ex-Biogenesis employee Porter Fischer met with league investigators and proceeded to tell them he will not hand over his damning clinic records unless MLB gives him at least $1 million, reports TMZ.

MLB has reportedly yet to make any sort of offer for the documentation, but are planning to meet with Fischer again in the near future. If league does end up paying Fischer, it will likely have the evidence they need to hand out suspensions without fear of a successful appeal, but it will come at a pretty great cost to its legitimacy. The league is already in an awkward position by agreeing to throw out its lawsuit against clinic director Tony Bosch (and pay him) in exchange for his testimony, so things can only get worse if more money changes hands.

MLB players facing punishment for their alleged connection to the Biogenesis clinic in Miami may face suspensions before the appeals process, Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports is reporting.

When a player tests positive for a performance-enhancing drug, their suspension is not supposed to be announced until after the appeals process. The MLB Joint Drug Agreement, however, enables the sport to announce suspensions for “just cause” before the appeals process has begun, but only if the allegations have been previously made public from outside sources, according to Rosenthal.

Major League Baseball has begun interviewing the big-league players implicated in the Biogenesis PED scandal, and those who have spoken to investigators are “convinced” that suspensions are in the offing, reports Jon Heyman of CBS Sports.

Not much is known about the interview process other than the fact that each player will be accompanied by a representative of the MLB Players Association, who is likely present to ensure that the player does not offer any more information than is required of him.

According to a report on ESPN, on Wednesday a Miami-Dade County Circuit Court judge elected not to dismiss the lawsuit Major League Baseball had filed against Tony Bosch and other figures associated with the Biogenesis clinic.

What’s fascinating about this latest development is not just that MLB gets to retain its hold over Bosch, but that a judge feels that its novel legal strategy of suing on the basis of “intentional and unjustified tortious interference” has at least enough merit to let the lawsuit go forward. Tortious interference is the legal term for when a person who is not a party to a contract does something that induces one of the parties to breach that contract. In concluding the Joint Drug Agreement the Players Association and Major League Baseball made a contract to keep the game free of certain prohibited substances. According to MLB’s reasoning, Bosch, in (allegedly) supplying the players with those substances, caused them to breach the JDA.