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Life Lessons

Ryan Braun Lost His Case

The best lawyer in the world can’t help in the court of public opinion. Now that Ryan Braun has won his appeal of a positive drug test, he gets to try his case with the fans.

He better win that case, because even though the arbitrator overturned his 50-game suspension, Braun looks like the loser here. No lawyer, no arbitrator can clean up the whiff of doubt. If Braun had won his case by establishing he had never taken performance enhancing drugs, he would be a hero in the public’s eyes. If he had lost the case, he could have served his suspension, apologized, and moved on with his life and career.

Instead, he stands on a mushy middle ground.  From everything we’re hearing, Braun got off on a technicality. His specimen wasn’t handled the way baseball rules say it should be. Fans are smart enough to know this, especially the fans in opposing parks. So are historians.

It won’t matter that Braun won last year’s National League MVP and led the Milwaukee Brewers back into the playoffs. When he pulls on his uniform, he could well have an asterisk where his No. 8 belongs.

Unless Braun can tell us his version of the story in a way that makes complete sense, every stat that comes from his bat will invite suspicion.

Today is the first day of the rest of Braun’s life, and he must work to remove that suspicion. It reminds me of something Abraham Lincoln once said.

“I do the very best I know how – the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end,” he said. “If the end brings me out all right, what’s said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, 10 angels swearing I was right would make no difference.”

I am rooting for Braun to tell a story that makes complete sense.

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Discussion

One comment for “Ryan Braun Lost His Case”

  1. “The truth shall make you free.” Jesus said it a long time ago. Still makes sense today.

    Posted by Frank Verde | February 24, 2012, 6:37 pm

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