Braun tests positive for PED | Presser update pg. 42

[trwi7]

In your judicial system (as it should be) its better to have 2 killers escape from penalty than have innocent people be guilty of a crime they never committed.

But that's not what it's like in this case. Braun had to prove he was innocent, you're guilty until proven innocent in cases like this so obviously Braun had a much better case than what's been reported so far.

And testosterone makes you bigger, stronger and faster. Why did Braun not get any bigger, stronger or faster?

It would be stupid of Braun to challenge the positive result because those are almost never wrong so he has to challenge chain of custody and then use the stuff listed above to supplement that argument. Haudricourt said very early in the this that if Braun's defense was to challenge the positive result he wouldn't win, even if something was tainted or he took it unknowingly because MLB doesn't care how it got in your body.

So there is far more to the story than anybody has reported so far. Whether Braun comes out and tells the story only time will tell.

[Ryan5UW]

Yeah, I agree twirlz - there's definitely more going on here than has been reported, and possibly ever will be.

I look at it this way - say I get accused of a crime and I'm going to go to jail. I have two ways to avoid that - prove I'm innocent, or prove they screwed up in collecting evidence against me. I'm 100% innocent, but it would be close to impossible for me to prove that for whatever reason. BUT, I can pretty easily prove the second argument - that something about the evidence is flawed. Both keep me out of jail, but one is a lot easier to do. Not gonna lie - I'm taking the easier route to avoid jail, and then I'll figure out the rest later. That could very well be what's going on here.

[paulpressey25]

So there is far more to the story than anybody has reported so far. Whether Braun comes out and tells the story only time will tell.

So are you saying there is more to come in the form of Dino's kid spiking the sample or something like that? Or are you just speculating there will be more facts leaking out over the next month that you don't know about yet but might change people's opinions?

[trwi7]

I don't know who did what but you have sources saying he tested for testosterone three times higher than anyone in MLB has ever tested for yet showed no side effects from the testosterone and didn't get any bigger, faster or stronger which is exactly what testesterone does.

You have Narveson (works with the union) saying that while he doesn't know all the details of the Braun case he dismisses it being a technicality only and goes on to say this isn't the first time they've had issues with the people doing the testing in Milwaukee.

As I just posted on the general board. The only people that know the entire defense and the story of what happened are Braun, his legal team, the collector, Shyam Das and anyone else who was in the room during the appeal. That's it. When you talk to people who work with this stuff they say there's no way you don't get any bigger, stronger or faster using synthetic testosterone, especially at the levels he tested positive for, yet he didn't gain any muscle mass and he didn't gain any speed.

What does that tell any reasonable person? There is far more to the story than what has been reported and whether Braun decides to come out and tell the whole story is his decision after he looks at whether he wants to go through litigation.

[trwi7]

http://www.chadmoriyama.com/2012/02/rya ... important/

[dedned]

Dino was the athletic trainer at my high school. From what I know of him I don't think he would have any reason to tamper with the sample. I guess you never know tho.

[trwi7]

Here's the problem with Braun making any technical arguments yesterday:

Intelligent as he is, he's simply not the guy you want out there making those arguments. They're too technical, too subtle and probably not entirely dispositive of the case in the way that would satisfy the "we demand a full accounting" crowd.

If you start down that road, you're going to get followup questions and Braun is not equipped to answer them in all likelihood. What's worse, the followup question might be an awful question that sounds like it makes sense, but it probably doesn't. Then you invite in a whole bunch of outside experts into the case who are going to populate every talk outlet and talk about something of which they have no first-hand knowledge of the facts. Most of them will probably be hostile to Braun's position. It's just the nature of how these things go, and we've already seen it as everybody with a stake in the anti-doping world has already weighed in after probably spending less time with the particulars of this case than most of us have. Braun and his people simply aren't going to win a 'science-y' media war against a group that has honed their "we're always right, athletes always cheat" rhetoric for over 20 years now.

The bottom line is, if you start arguing science you may get maneuvered into the position of being required by the media to construct an entire narrative based on science, which is probably simply not plausible. The media has clearly lost sight of the fact that, no matter what the legal construct is, a reasonable person should be expecting MLB to be the ones constructing that narrative, as that narrative is their entire case. MLB is shielded from having to make this case by the very cloak of secrecy which was breached; a breach that, by its very existence, served to shift that same onus onto Braun. Don't think that how any of this spin machine works out happened just by accident. The system is designed to almost always beat the athlete in the hearing, and further designed to continue to impugn his character in almost every case in which he does win. It's no accident that I was able to predict the "technicality" line of post-verdict attack way back on December 11.

[Captain Erv]

I heard a little bit of a Dan Patrick yesterday. I'm not sure who his sources are, but they must be somewhat credible since he reported a few weeks back that he thought Braun would get off. Anyway, he had two interesting tidbits. Apparently Braun took and passed a polygraph test and this Dino guy is said to be a Cubs fan.

[Kerb Hohl]

Yeah, and he wouldn't even look at Braun in court.

[jakecronus8]

I heard a little bit of a Dan Patrick yesterday. I'm not sure who his sources are, but they must be somewhat credible since he reported a few weeks back that he thought Braun would get off. Anyway, he had two interesting tidbits. Apparently Braun took and passed a polygraph test and this Dino guy is said to be a Cubs fan.

I know he's tight with Reggie Miller, Braun's neighbor. That is just my speculation.

[paulpressey25]

http://www.chadmoriyama.com/2012/02/ryan-braun-what-you-dont-know-about-his-case-is-important/

I went to the link and he's citing that Will Carroll piece which apparently says that the high testosterone reading can come from mishandling. And in that interview linked, Carroll says that the Braun attorneys were able to replicate the sample. But yet he doesn't really give any details about how they did this.

Addtionally, Carroll is the only guy right now claiming that Braun's team was somehow able to take a second clean sample and make it tainted. No other news source or reporter has claimed this, and if Braun's team was able to make that happen he should have gone public with it. That would be pretty powerful.

I guess I have a hard time with the Will Carroll stuff that given that Victor Conte and a different lab guy they had on ESPN radio last night were saying that a) The levels that Braun had weren't impossibly high (they've seen much higher) and b) The second level of testing showed synthetic testosterone was in the sample, which can't really be explained by simply letting the sample age or the like.

To me the scenario where Braun is clean is one where either his sample is spiked by Dino or his kid (plausible) or the lab flat out screwed up by using the wrong sample or mishandling it (also plausible)

[trwi7]

b) The second level of testing showed synthetic testosterone was in the sample, which can't really be explained by simply letting the sample age or the like.

Go through this thread and specifically look for posts by pebadger and xisxisxis. They explain the synthetic testosterone thing. I'll post something from pebadger.

http://forum.brewerfan.net/viewtopic.ph ... &start=720

No, you can't spontaneously sprout synthetic T in urine sample, but the test that "determines" that synthetic T is present does not actually find synthetic T in urine. What it does is identify the metabolites produced when T is used up by your body processes. It identifies them only by very precisely detemining when the remnants of those metabolites pass in front of a sensor after the urine sample has been literally turned into a gas. The gas rises up a tube and the different remnant rise at microscopically different rates. A sensor records data about these remnants as they pass by. This data is turned into a printout (though it can also be evaluated just as numbers). Then you look on your printout for a peak at a given "time" on the graph, you measure that peak and make a determination as to what that means.

Here's the catch. What if two different things are passing by the sensor at a give time? If you are predisposed to think that everything passing by that sensor at that specific time is indicative of synthetic T, you're going to get a big peak that looks like a lot of synthetic T that is actually only a mcuh smaller amounts of two different things. (And that small amount, for reasons alluded to in posts long ago, would not mean that there was a small amount of synthetic T, either. A determination of synthetic T being present can only be made by comparing ratios of different carbon ions, both of which are present in nature, and then making a statistical hypothesis that a certain ratio is "out of whack" with what would normally be expected in a given sample. It's diagnostic art and statistics as much as anything.

This is a vast oversimplification, but the point is that you don't "find' synthetic T waving back at you from under a microscope. These tests are extraordinarily complex in nature. Just reading this simplified version should provide further insight into why I say it's virtually impossible for the athlete to challenge the conclusion of the testers when they say they're right.

[paulpressey25]

Twirl, I read that. And for now at least, I'll believe the ESPN testing expert and Victor Conte over an anonymous Brewer fan posting on Brewerfan.net. And in reality, I agree with some of what that poster said (see bottom of this post)

I think that thread over there did a good job debunking the Will Carroll stuff. If Braun's team could run tests with clean urine and make them show spikes of evidence of synthetic testosterone, that should have been the first thing he said at that press conference and it wouldn't have been "too scientific" for him to explain.

Frankly, if Braun's team proved you could get crazy high spikes in just a couple days of the sample sitting in a sealed collection case under different temperatures and conditions, they should be shouting that one to Buster Olney and Haudricourt as it would put into question the entire testing science. But they aren't doing that.

I would however buy a theory that the urine was spiked or substituted in the chain of custody or the lab and I also would buy a theory that the lab screwed up. Heck we see doctors sometimes amputate the wrong leg on some patients. So 1,000 samples as some lab in Montreal might not exactly be handled in a 100% perfect fashion.

But I have a hard time with the Will Carroll stuff. He's the only guy saying this and he's charging 99 cents to read his theory. That doesn't pass the smell test.

[emunney]

Why would anybody listen to Conte unless he was playing with Tower of Power? The guy is corrupt to the core. How did he even get his hands on these test results? Let's ask Jose Canseco what his conclusions are.

[jimmybones]

But that's not what it's like in this case. Braun had to prove he was innocent, you're guilty until proven innocent in cases like this so obviously Braun had a much better case than what's been reported so far.

And testosterone makes you bigger, stronger and faster. Why did Braun not get any bigger, stronger or faster?

It would be stupid of Braun to challenge the positive result because those are almost never wrong so he has to challenge chain of custody and then use the stuff listed above to supplement that argument. Haudricourt said very early in the this that if Braun's defense was to challenge the positive result he wouldn't win, even if something was tainted or he took it unknowingly because MLB doesn't care how it got in your body.

So there is far more to the story than anybody has reported so far. Whether Braun comes out and tells the story only time will tell.

Pretty much this. No one can explain how the guy with the largest elevated T:E ratio ever seen in MLB has seen no dramatic change in size, strength, speed. It's not even physiologically possible for him to not gain more mass with how he trains with that high of test in his body. That argument means absolutely nothing on trial, but what I know about test and it's effect on the body it says a lot to me to make be believe Braun.

[WiscSports1]

Why would anybody listen to Conte unless he was playing with Tower of Power? The guy is corrupt to the core. How did he even get his hands on these test results? Let's ask Jose Canseco what his conclusions are.

Exactly. Didn't he come out and say that Braun fits the profile of a user right after the test? What a joke.

[trwi7]

Will Carroll‏@injuryexpert

Interesting result of Braun's appeal -- since not an adverse result, he will NOT be on the accelerated testing program.

Also said normal is 3-5 times a year and accelerated is 10-12 times.

[kid idioteque]

Twirl, I read that. And for now at least, I'll believe the ESPN testing expert and Victor Conte over an anonymous Brewer fan posting on Brewerfan.net. And in reality, I agree with some of what that poster said (see bottom of this post)

I think that thread over there did a good job debunking the Will Carroll stuff. If Braun's team could run tests with clean urine and make them show spikes of evidence of synthetic testosterone, that should have been the first thing he said at that press conference and it wouldn't have been "too scientific" for him to explain.

Frankly, if Braun's team proved you could get crazy high spikes in just a couple days of the sample sitting in a sealed collection case under different temperatures and conditions, they should be shouting that one to Buster Olney and Haudricourt as it would put into question the entire testing science. But they aren't doing that.

I would however buy a theory that the urine was spiked or substituted in the chain of custody or the lab and I also would buy a theory that the lab screwed up. Heck we see doctors sometimes amputate the wrong leg on some patients. So 1,000 samples as some lab in Montreal might not exactly be handled in a 100% perfect fashion.

But I have a hard time with the Will Carroll stuff. He's the only guy saying this and he's charging 99 cents to read his theory. That doesn't pass the smell test.

Braun's stubbornness might be the reason why he isn't using this argument publicly. While it's a strong argument if true, he probably doesn't want to acknowledge that there may have been elevated testosterone in his sample at all. By using this "repeatable result" angle, he would be implying that it was his sample and that there was something inherently wrong with it, which may not be the case.

[coolhandluke121]

No one can explain how the guy with the largest elevated T:E ratio ever seen in MLB has seen no dramatic change in size, strength, speed. It's not even physiologically possible for him to not gain more mass with how he trains with that high of test in his body.

What Victor Conte is saying is that there are fast-acting creams that enter the body quickly and are gone within 24 hours or less. They are not used for long-term gains, but rather to help muscles recover faster so the player is fresh for the next game. Some people, like Conte, say that players use them right after games all the time. There is a very slim chance of getting caught, or even arousing any suspicion for that matter, because the synthetic testosterone is out of your system within hours and doesn't have a lasting impact. Just to throw some more fuel on this fire, it's interesting to note that Braun was tested shortly after the first play-off game and went 3 for 4 with a double and a homer the next day. If he used a cream and was tested immediately afterwards, that might explain his extraordinarily high testosterone levels. Food for thought.

Disagree with Conte or attack his credibility all you want, but this would actually explain a lot. This doesn't account for the collector's behavior, though. That may or may not have had anything to do with the result, and we really don't know one way or the other. It could just have been unprofessional slacking/apathy on his part. He probably does these all the time and almost never has a positive, so maybe he thought he didn't have to worry about being held accountable for not following protocol. I'm not arguing that Braun is guilty, but this would seem to be the simplest possible explanation. Tampering, incorrect science, degradation of the sample (why would not explain why it was synthetic T), or flat-out incompetence at the lab all seem less likely to me.

[coolhandluke121]

Why would anybody listen to Conte unless he was playing with Tower of Power? The guy is corrupt to the core. How did he even get his hands on these test results? Let's ask Jose Canseco what his conclusions are.

In all fairness to Canseco, regardless of how corrupt he was didn't he prove to be right on almost all counts?