Braun tests positive for PED | Presser update pg. 42

[WEFFPIM]

Thanks to Twirl for sharing the Will Carroll tweets. I just spent a bit going through each of them and it makes sense. It also pisses me off that ESPN isn't even acknowledging this ****.

Biggest thing for me now is how Will Carroll found out.

[JBucks]

Braun is not going to be able to bring legal action against ESPN for slander or libel. He's a public figure and would have to prove actual malice, but even that won't come into play because ESPN did not actually defame him.

[Asher]

does anyone know (and not that it's going to happen), but does braun have a potential lawsuit against espn? for slander, defamation, etc. in releasing this news when it was supposed to be confidential? granted, they're a news organization and can report what they like, but when it's so obviously defamatory as to taint his reputation and 'brand', does he have a legal leg to stand on?

cuz that would be AWESOME to watch espn try to not report that

Bolded the key. No legal case exists, especially since the initial story was true (Braun failed MLB drug test).

i think a legal case can exist if the reporting source is not objective. if his legal team could stitch together all the on-air snippets, print reports, etc., and demonstrate that espn was unfairly biased against him over an extended period of time so as to cause damage to his public business persona, perhaps he does have a case.

again, not that i expect it to happen, just curious for some legal insight.

[JBucks]

All you need to understand is that Braun's burden of proof as a public figure bringing suit for defamation is VERY high. It is not the same as John Q. Public's case.

He has to prove that there was "actual malice" on the part of ESPN. In other words, ESPN would have to have known that the report it issued was false.

See the 1964 case NYT v Sullivan. That's the precedent.

[WEFFPIM]

i think a legal case can exist if the reporting source is not objective. if his legal team could stitch together all the on-air snippets, print reports, etc., and demonstrate that espn was unfairly biased against him over an extended period of time so as to cause damage to his public business persona, perhaps he does have a case.

again, not that i expect it to happen, just curious for some legal insight.

There's nothing here. ESPN is a news source. It's also an opinion outlet. ESPN is allowed to have their opinions about certain topics. They can only fall victim to public opinion, nothing legal.

[Miasma]

Hey ladies, wanna come see the Ryan Braun piss I got in my fridge?

[JBucks]

Braun wasn't defamed by ESPN, as contemptible as ESPN is.

[humanrefutation]

does anyone know (and not that it's going to happen), but does braun have a potential lawsuit against espn? for slander, defamation, etc. in releasing this news when it was supposed to be confidential? granted, they're a news organization and can report what they like, but when it's so obviously defamatory as to taint his reputation and 'brand', does he have a legal leg to stand on?

cuz that would be AWESOME to watch espn try to not report that

ESPN owes no duty of confidentiality to Braun. I don't think he has a case against them at all. But definitely against whoever leaked it.

[MikeIsGood]

i think a legal case can exist if the reporting source is not objective. if his legal team could stitch together all the on-air snippets, print reports, etc., and demonstrate that espn was unfairly biased against him over an extended period of time so as to cause damage to his public business persona, perhaps he does have a case.

again, not that i expect it to happen, just curious for some legal insight.

There's nothing here. ESPN is a news source. It's also an opinion outlet. ESPN is allowed to have their opinions about certain topics. They can only fall victim to public opinion, nothing legal.

Totally agree. Regardless, they're on their path to sports-TMZ territory. Y! Sports is so blatantly superior it isn;t even funny. Will they ever be dethroned? No, but it's worth mentioning.

[WEFFPIM]

Totally agree. Regardless, they're on their path to sports-TMZ territory. Y! Sports is so blatantly superior it isn;t even funny. Will they ever be dethroned? No, but it's worth mentioning.

Y! Sports is the main site I use for all sports news. If Twitter links me to somewhere else, I'll use it. But Yahoo! is my go to. Amazing how a sports outlet with far less at their disposable can be so leaps and bounds ahead of the WWL

[paulpressey25]

Thanks to Twirl for sharing the Will Carroll tweets. I just spent a bit going through each of them and it makes sense. It also pisses me off that ESPN isn't even acknowledging this ****.

If you can prove that storing the sample in a fridge for a period of days causes levels to spike, that would obviously exonerate Braun completely.

I have a feeling though that some experts will come out tomorrow though and say that theory is more like the Pons/Fleischman cold fusion test.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion

But I'm open to hearing about from the experts about it.

[Asher]

right on. think he'll probably try to let all this go anyway, but as humanrefutation says, he's possibly got something against the original 'leaker'. wonder if he could try to force espn to declare their sources...

[ReasonablySober]

If it's investigative journalism, Yahoo is where to go. If it's well reasoned opinions by really smart and talened writers I've started to hit up SBNation more and more. It's probably the site I visit most during the week outside of RealGM.

[El Duderino]

Regardless of what comes out going forward about what may have happened with Braun and his drug test, there simply is going to be a certain percentage of baseball fans and even some in the media who will believe that Ryan used PED's and was lucky to get off. Some will even think that Bud Selig secretly pulled strings behind the scenes to help the Brewers. Fans particularly of NL Central teams that already hated Braun will never believe he wasn't really guilty.

So there really is no point for any Brewers fans to get annoyed as the inevitable cries of Braun is just a lucky cheater come out from people that in the vast majority of cases don't understand all of the science behind the whole testing process anyways.

I know that i certainly don't have the knowledge to clearly understand all the factors that potentially could have lead to a false positive, if there really was a false positive for whatever reason. That's the rub, such limited information has come out for real experts in the drug testing field to analyze and maybe clear this thing up more, if that's even possible beyond chain of custody problems.

Right now we have tons of Brewers fans saying this shows Braun was really innocent and lots of non-Brewers fans and some in the media claiming Ryan just got lucky to get off, but likely still tried cheating and nobody really has any facts to back their position.

For me, i'm just glad this gives Ryan at least a chance to restore his reputation and we don't lose him for 50 games.

[dbrodz7]

#exBRAUNerated

[Oscar71]

I can't wait for the offspring of Braun's legal team to get their own reality shows....

[Captain Erv]

ESPN keeps pushing the "they didn't challenge the science" line. I thought from what I've read from Carroll that they did do that. Somebody set me straight.

[trwi7]

ESPN keeps pushing the "they didn't challenge the science" line. I thought from what I've read from Carroll that they did do that. Somebody set me straight.

Gee, who to believe. It's not like ESPN would show any bias in this story.

[trwi7]

Wow, just read on brewerfan.net that legal analyst for ESPN Lester Munson was on Mike and Mike this morning and said Braun offered to do a DNA test to prove conclusively whether or not the sample was his and MLB declined.

MLB seems to be more worried about protecting their drug testing program than the actual truth getting out. There is absolutely no reason for MLB to decline a DNA test other than stubborness.

[Kerb Hohl]

I read that as well.

Hopefully the national feelings on this shift a bit shortly...but they won't.