paulpressey25 wrote:No arguments that Braun shouldn't have gotten off last year. Chain of custody was broken.
Completely different issue though from one of personal integrity. Braun has none. He could have easily said that he believed the chain of custody was at issue and it may have resulted in a false positive. My lawyers are looking into it. And he could still then win his appeal. End of story.
Instead he took it further. A lot further.
Why is Braun such a villain? Because after getting a reprieve last year that it’s now pretty obvious he didn’t deserve, he had the gall to smear the lowest man on the baseball org chart to make himself look a teeny-tiny bit better. In February 2012, after he successfully appealed a 50-game drug suspension, the 2011 MVP smarmed his way through a victory press conference, whining that he’d been wrongfully accused and that the whole process had been so very hard on him. He also attacked the integrity of Dino Laurenzi Jr., the man who’d collected his urine sample. "There were a lot of things that we learned about the collector, about the collection process, about the way that the entire thing worked that made us very concerned and very suspicious about what could have actually happened," he said, citing nothing at all to support his claims. “We spoke to biochemists and scientists, and asked them how difficult it would be for someone to taint the sample. They said, if they were motivated, it would be extremely easy.” At the same time, Braun praised his own moral rectitude, saying, “I will continue to take the high road. We won because the truth was on my side.”
I can post the email Passan and other reporters got from Braun's camp that he printed in his story today but I think you guys have all read it. That was a lot worse. Basically said "Dino did it"
Braun took the leap from "bad custody procedure, something could have gone wrong" to "focus your attention on this punk, he had motive and resources to spike my test".
Doesn't mean he shouldn't have won his case last year. Just means he's a moral scumbag.
I see nothing at all wrong with the above defense which was no doubt constructed by Braun's lawyers. The problem I see is MLB and an MLB employee violating process which not only put one particular sample at risk, but put an entire entity and those associated at risk. Braun's team was pointing out just exactly why in explicit terms that the violation of the process necessitated the fact that these samples had to be thrown out. They did nothing wrong.
MLB and its employees negligent , and in terms of secrecy, its intentional violation of the process is a much bigger deal than one player spreading some cream. But maybe you don't like a system in which procedure isnt procedure for its own sake, but guarantees faith and confidence in the system. Drunk cop body cavity searches FTW. Maybe you like that kinda thing
Braun could have stopped alot of things by not doing something. So could any illegal drug dealer/user. That doesnt give contracted or government enforcement carte blanche to rewrite their own agreements (contracts, laws, constitutions) in their lust to catch them. That is a much worse offense and lack of integrity than any single offense, especially in this case a nonviolent one.
