Ryan Braun exonerated, no suspension… Latest: MLB drops Eliezer Alfonzo suspension; case similar to Braun's (part 1)

[reillymcshane]

Braunie did well. Categorically denied taking anything wrong.

 

Would like to have heard a few things (like others have alluded to), such as 'I offered a DNA test to confirm the urine was mine' (I don't know if this is true, but it's been reported), or 'I passed a lie detector test when asked if I had taken anything wrong' or 'we were able to show the arbitrator how the levels could be so high by recreating the situation'.

 

However, I understand he might not be able to say some of these things. He was great in saying things like 'I respect the game and the testing process, and I'm not going to break the confidentiality of the process' and 'I've had to endure people lying and speculating about what I did, so I'm not going to do the same about others.'

 

He came across confident in his innocence, yet he showed some definite humility and strain.

 

I find it interesting that he's 'keeping his options' open legally - meaning he can go after baseball and the people involved in the testing if he wants. I wonder if that's a warning shot at MLB, saying 'if you keep coming after me, I'll do the same right back'.

 

Not perfect, but it was very good.

[pebadger]

He knocked it out of the park.

 

Anyone asking Braun to explain something that he is neither in a position nor specifically educated enough to explain still doesn't get it.

[JET15]

I'm feeling a corner being turned here with the media... they're no longer talking technicalities and saying things like "getting off"... and saying Braun's name in the same breath as OJ and Casey Anthony,

 

I hope this momentum continues and the right angle is taken on this story going forward

[DocBrewPack]

He nailed that. This has to help his reputation a ton after yesterday when everyone was just saying he got off on a technicality.

[JohnBriggs12]

I heard the news conference on the radio. You cannot fake the emotion that was audible in the voice. That's a man that's been thinking about this day for months. Particularly damning I thought was Braun's talking about the many Fed Ex locations that were in fact open plenty long enough between MP and the collector's house and the fact that he not only kept the samples, but waited until hours after the Fed Ex locations opened on Monday to finally drop them off.

 

I'm looking forward to the Braun legal team ultimately filing the lawsuits that he strongly hinted at and that this situation is absolutely begging for to obtain justice.

[Bombers]

and 1250 can eat some crow too ... They better open up the big show with an appology. Plain and simple. They all were preaching Braun was guilty yesterday.

[JET15]

Verducci on MLb Network is saying that players he talked to think Braun is innocent.

 

That's quite a difference from last night when MLB Network was slamming him, particularly Byrnes.

[trwi7]

Braunie did well. Categorically denied taking anything wrong.

 

Would like to have heard a few things (like others have alluded to), such as 'I offered a DNA test to confirm the urine was mine' (I don't know if this is true, but it's been reported), or 'I passed a lie detector test when asked if I had taken anything wrong' or 'we were able to show the arbitrator how the levels could be so high by recreating the situation'.

 

He didn't state these specifically but very early in the press conference said he opened everything up in order to prove his innocence.

[jazzytrav]

This is just killing me...please, someone answer this for me.

 

I keep hearing over and over that Braun is the first person to overturn a suspension. But as I've understood it all along, no one would know if a suspension had been overturned because in EVERY OTHER CASE, the confidentiality wasn't breached. We never should have known about any of this, especially now that he's been exonerated...am I wrong on that?

[Roderick]

I'm looking forward to the Braun legal team ultimately filing the lawsuits that he strongly hinted at and that this situation is absolutely begging for to obtain justice.

So am I. Otherwise my take on only hearing the press conference was that I would be a lot more mad then he was if I was innocent and had to go through this process. And I would be letting people know it. But if I knew I was going to sue, maybe I could hold it in for now.

[jimmyjeromehardy7]

Have no regrets sending my one year old son to day care in his Braun tshirt today after that press conference. Hopefully this will be the start of Braun clearing his name and I won't have to explain any of this to my son in a few years.

[reillymcshane]

This is just killing me...please, someone answer this for me.

 

I keep hearing over and over that Braun is the first person to overturn a suspension. But as I've understood it all along, no one would know if a suspension had been overturned because in EVERY OTHER CASE, the confidentiality wasn't breached. We never should have known about any of this, especially now that he's been exonerated...am I wrong on that?

i think it's been reported by 'inside' sources that no one has ever beaten MLB in this situation (until now). Nothing, that i know of, has been officially released by baseball or any player. I think it's just multiple news outlets getting the 'inside' info from baseball.

[yoyo49]

Opening day standing ovation for the entire top half of the first. Let's make it happen.

[Bombers]

Opening day standing ovation for the entire top half of the first. Let's make it happen.

2nd that!

[Fear The Chorizo]

You're absolutely right, jazzytrav. Part of confidentiality is that overturned suspensions were never made public. There honestly isn't a way to prove/disprove that Braun was the 1st player to overturn an pending suspension via appeal, because confidentiality means the general public shouldn't have any knowledge of the other instances.

 

I believe the 13-0 number for upholding suspensions simply comes from the # of suspensions that have been issued.

[Outlander]

Verducci on MLb Network is saying that players he talked to think Braun is innocent.

 

That's quite a difference from last night when MLB Network was slamming him, particularly Byrnes.

 

Byrnes is a tool, he also said a little birdie told him that Braun's team leaked the initial suspension.

[GoudaBrew]

Was hoping he'd be asked how he would handle or trust future tests. He'll be tested this season. A lot. How can he possibly trust anyone involved?

 

I was also hoping he'd ask the media to stop using the word "technicality", but him explaining the circumstances may have made that point anyway.

 

Everyone has said it, so I will too....He absolutely killed that presser in my eyes. So proud to be a Braun and Brewers fan.

[BradWI]

Opening day standing ovation for the entire top half of the first. Let's make it happen.

 

Too bad half of the crowd will still be in the lots as happens pretty much every OD. The place is even more of a ghost town during baseline intros.

[dhoffman19]

This is just killing me...please, someone answer this for me.

 

I keep hearing over and over that Braun is the first person to overturn a suspension. But as I've understood it all along, no one would know if a suspension had been overturned because in EVERY OTHER CASE, the confidentiality wasn't breached. We never should have known about any of this, especially now that he's been exonerated...am I wrong on that?

i think it's been reported by 'inside' sources that no one has ever beaten MLB in this situation (until now). Nothing, that i know of, has been officially released by baseball or any player. I think it's just multiple news outlets getting the 'inside' info from baseball.

 

Correct. Although you are right that it would be confidential, members of the media including Tom Haudricourt have reported that according to their sources familiar with the drug testing program, no player has ever won one of these appeals.

[xisxisxis]

Star Chamber 0 Ryan Braun 1

[pebadger]

On false positives:

 

Let's say there are 5000 players in organized ball. If 1% are doping then you have 50 dirty players.

 

Let's say we test all the players on the same day and the test is correct 99% of the time. In other words, 99% of the time it will say an clean player is clean and a dirty player is dirty. This also means however that 1% of the time a clean player will be accused of taking drugs and a dirty player will "beat" the test.

 

So we test the 50 dirty guys. The test will catch all 50 of them. Test the 4950 clean players. The test will clear 4900 players and yield 50 positives.

 

So we have a pool of 100 positive test results, yet only half of those positives are actual positives. And since we don't know who the dirty player really are, if you pick one of these positive results at random you have a 50/50 shot at accusing an innocent man of being a cheat.

 

Let's say that you are able to increase the reliabiliy of the test to only being wrong 1 time in 1000, a tenfold increase in the reliability of the test. You still catch all 50 of the dirty guys, but will still end up with 5 false positives. This means that if you pick a positive at random you still have a 9% chance of accusing an innocent man.

 

Now let's assume 1% is too low a number of cheaters. Let's make it 2% (which is still less than 1 per 40 man roster at the MLB level).

 

With a 99% test you catch 99 actual cheats, but one goes free. You also accuse 49 innocent men. Roughly 1/3 of all accusations will be false. If you imporve the test by a factor of 10, you still have a false positive rate of nearly 5%.

 

As you can see, knowing a true "false positive" rate is dependant on knowing both how good the test is and the actual rate of cheaters in the population.

 

It's pretty much impossible to know the actual rate of cheaters in the population. Going back to a post I made way back in December, the bigger problem is that the people who could have a very good idea of how good the test is in a statistical sense have simply not done any long-term or longitudinal studies on that matter.

 

The bottom line is that we don't know with any statistical certainty what the false positive rate is. The testers have no incentive to take any action that will diminish the image of the test in public eyes. Individual athletes are in no position to conduct such scientific research. many of the people doing the science are not especially interested in what might go wrong. They are interested in how to get even better at catching cheaters. The sad thing is, the better you get at detecting even trace amounts off illegal substances, the more likely you are to accuse people of intentional wrongdoing who have done no such thing.

 

So in the end we are left with tests that very are good, but not as good as they should be. We are left with a system in which a test result is deemed to be 100% correct and which can't really be attacked directly. We are left with a system in which the best, and sometimes ONLY, way for a truly innocent athlete to win a case of thise type is to win exactly the way Ryan Braun did.

 

His reward? Being almost more vilified as not only a cheat, but a conniving, cynical cheat who worked the system.

[RayKingsForemanGrill]

Reading between the lines, and using powers of deduction:

 

1. 100 percent positive that substance never entered my body

2. Treated like a nuclear weapon in Montreal, documented relentlessly

 

He's basically saying that it was tampered with. That someone added it. And there are only two other people (collector and son) who could have known whose sample it was. So I'm guessing we're going to learn a lot more about those two guys...

[ilovebeer]

Most of the Brewer players were sitting in the stands while braun spoke.

[RightFieldCoder]

If Braun really did take performance enhancing drugs and got off, he has a future in politics. That press conference was nailed. Only haters could walk away from that and still think he is guilty.

[jjfanec]

If Braun really did take performance enhancing drugs and got off, he has a future in politics. That press conference was nailed. Only haters could walk away from that and still think he is guilty.

 

Sadly there are a lot of haters out there.