Why is Ryan Braun so hated?

[tmwiese55]

A rod admitted to using throughout his career after everyone else started putting up such gawdy stats. Yea wouldn't surprise me at all if Braun used in little cycles to get over nagging muscle injuries. What he was caught with were those tiny gummies where could probably take one night and it wouldn't be in the system the next day because it was such a small amount, or at least it would've be elevated enough to be considered a failed test.

[DHonks]

My guess is that Braun had that really bad leg injury (calf? quad?) around the all-star break that year. He tried to avoid the DL and that led to him discussing untraceable substances that could aid his recovery. He likely knew there was something sketchy, but not sure he knew enough to ask questions

[MrTPlush]

I will always believe there's a decent chance he used PEDs his entire career going back to his days in Miami. Maybe that's not fair, but that's what I believe. In fact, in a lot of ways, it makes more sense than suddenly just trying it one year.

That's been my assumption as well. Once the sample case & Biogenesis story came out, I remembered reading that Braun had trained with A-Rod sometimes in the off-season while Braun was still at Miami. Made me suspicious, since I've long thought A-Rod's arrival & studliness in MLB two years removed from high school smelled fishy, or PED-y. He's a guy I also believe used throughout his career, maybe not nonstop, but I definitely think he wasn't just using around 2013.

 

Biogenesis is also based in Miami where he played college ball and there was some connection to UofMiami baseball and Biogenesis. I don't remember the details of the later as to when specifically that connection happened. I can't remember if it was a former player at Miami who admitted to PED use happening at Miami or if someone actually had gotten caught too that went there.

 

I am not going to assume he has always been using because that takes a lot of assuming and frankly it doesn't matter that much to me. Certainly reasons to believe it is possible.

[MrTPlush]

My guess is that Braun had that really bad leg injury (calf? quad?) around the all-star break that year. He tried to avoid the DL and that led to him discussing untraceable substances that could aid his recovery. He likely knew there was something sketchy, but not sure he knew enough to ask questions

 

Yes, Braun said it was for the injury that nagged him all of 2011 and got bad in the second half. He claimed to only use the second half of 2011.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Just as an aside, I was curious how much Braun's performance has really declined "post-PEDs".

 

2007-12 | PA: 3,854 (16th) wRC+: 149 (4th) Batting Runs: 228.8 (4th) fWAR: 30.3 (6th)

 

2013-17 | PA: 2,390 (111th) wRC+: 124 (38th) Batting Runs: 67.0 (37th) fWAR: 10.0 (104th)

 

So pretty much from top 5 hitter/player to top 40 hitter/100 player with injury issues.

 

I could definitely settle for another 110 or so games of 125ish wRC+ this season with a couple more crowd quieting moments like in San Diego thrown in for good measure.

 

I think the injuries have had a much larger impact for the drop off than not using PEDs. That thumb injury is no joke. Braun literally couldn't pull the ball for an entire season (not to mention his plethora of other injuries). I do wonder if his PED use was for injury prevention/recovery or if the use of PEDs has caused more soft tissue injuries later in his career.

 

 

It's hard to compare this, as you suggest at the end. He's aging and getting hurt as time goes on so I don't think it's a totally even comparison. As the age increases, so does the recovery time. One injury begets another, as you're using other parts your body, often incorrectly, to compensate for the parts falling apart. That's why it's so hard to ever tell precisely how much PEDs help.

 

Somebody would have to use them openly be allowed to compete long enough to examine it.

 

I don't think he was using them when he came out as a rookie. Maybe he was though, I don't know.

[TexasCheesehead]

Do y'all think, given the circumstances surrounding Ryan Braun, that the Brewers will still retire his number?

[MrTPlush]

Do y'all think, given the circumstances surrounding Ryan Braun, that the Brewers will still retire his number?

 

Not even a question. He is still Top 3 in our history and a good chunk of people still love him (hello female fans).

 

I mean the Marlins retired Jose Fernandez’s number and he was into drugs and essentially kills people.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Yeah, definitely getting his number retired when he's done. He'll still go down as the greatest or second greatest Brewer ever. If they win a World Series in the twilight of his career he'll be a total legend.

[jerichoholicninja]

Do y'all think, given the circumstances surrounding Ryan Braun, that the Brewers will still retire his number?

 

Not even a question. He is still Top 3 in our history and a good chunk of people still love him (hello female fans).

 

I mean the Marlins retired Jose Fernandez’s number and he was into drugs and essentially kills people.

 

Well I don't think those details were public when they did, but it shows how stupid they were to do it so quickly. And according to wikipedia, the number hasn't been officially retired yet and they will build a memorial instead.

 

But, yes, Braun's number will be retired. Hopefully they wait a few years like the Packers did with Favre though.

 

On the other hand, they might not and say it's because they only retire Hall of Famers numbers and Braun almost certainly isn't getting into the Hall of Fame.

[istanbultaye]

I actually feel almost bad for Braun, because I find him to be a sad character now. Like he's a muted version of what he was. Almost like the movie character who has everything, it all comes crashing down, then loses his money, wife/family, and is left with nothing. I don't feel bad for him for cheating, or all the aftermath stuff. I feel bad for him because I bet he wishes he could go back and do it all differently. He didn't need HGH to be great, but I think he needed to feed his ego.

 

Luckily for Braun he's still got his wife and his money, and has only had to suffer more booing than before, and a half a year suspension in a season that he was battling some injuries anyways. Somewhat ironically, he got married the offseason after the suspension.

 

I'm in the camp of, disappointed that he used, disappointed at how he handled the press conference, etc. But, he offered a) a well crafted and spoken, or b) a heartfelt - apology. He's seemingly done the right things in the time since, so I'm not going to hold it against him as a fan the rest of his life, and of course hope he continues being a good player for the Brewers. Not going to say I've "forgiven" him, as he didn't do anything to me personally, so what is there even to forgive?

[tmwiese55]

This just made me remember the Bob Loblaw line "why should you go to jail for a crime someone else noticed". I've never been a big anti PED guy as I think it's all overblown, but this type of line makes sense to me because he's just one of a lot of people who did the exact same thing, he just got noticed.

[MenchHead]

Like him or not, what he just did to the Red Birds feels really good!

[pacopete4]

More hated now.

[OnTheBlack]

Implying that the collector was anti-semitic was beyond pathetic. Braun is a walking piece of poop and I would have done cartwheels if he had been traded to LAD when they had a chance. The whole thing was disgraceful. Never forgive anyone who's that good at lying because they are pure slime.

 

 

This is a good example of the over the top hate for Braun.

 

And I'd have been thrilled if they'd have traded him to the Dodgers because it would have been good for the Brewers. Simple as that.

[The stache]

If people can hate Rickie Weeks for life because he didn't want to commit 50 errors in the outfield I think anyone has the right to hate Braun for an endless list of terrible things he did.

 

This whole discussion has moved beyond the realm of hyperbole. The endless list of terrible things he did? Please.

 

He had a calf injury. He played the entire season with it, and deservedly won the MVP because he performed at a high level (and yes, I think he deserved it over Kemp. Braun performed at a high level in a pennant race. Kemp had no pressure to perform, as the Dodgers were out of the race before the All Star break). The Brewers went to the playoffs for the second time in a quarter century, and had one chance to make a run at the World Series, as many key players were not going to return. Braun made a decision to use a banned substance to expedite healing on that calf injury. He made a mistake, but given the circumstances, anybody here who says they wouldn't do the same thing, or, at the very least, consider it, is being a hypocrite. By the way, I've seen nothing that conclusively proves that the substance he used, while banned by MLB, was, in fact, a PED. Somewhere, the whole "Braun used a PED" thing has been milled about in the echochamber that is the internet, and it's stuck-just like the "fact" that Braun called Dino Laurenzi Jr an anti-semite, when not one, but two of the players he "called to back his claim up", Joey Votto and Troy Tulowitzki, have both gone on record as saying that the calls never happened.

 

A leaked test showed that he failed a steroid test. That should have never happened, and it's easy to dismiss that as irrelevant. But is it? At the very least, it shows that somebody was out to besmirch Ryan Braun. The source of the information is irrelevant. We know it wasn't MLB, but somebody connected with the investigation.

 

Braun has PR people, and a legal defense team. He read a statement claiming his innocence, and his words came across as defiant. Do any of you really think he wrote that speech by himself? That he wasn't heavily coached by his defense team as to what he should say?

 

So, what "terrible things" has Braun done? He rubbed some cream on his calf, and, when the results of his confidential test and appeal were leaked, he read a statement calling the process, and the collector, into question.

 

How awful! Cast him into the seventh circle of hell next to Hitler (saving a spot for Justin Bieber).

 

How, exactly, did he throw Dino Laurenzi Jr under the bus? This is a completely untenable position to take, in my eyes. "We learned some things about how the sample was stored, how it was collected, we learned things about the collector." Well, Holy Jesus Christ, Braun created reasonable doubt in his statement. No lawyer has ever done that before. Had it been a lawyer appearing before a court, or in MLB's case, an independent arbitrator like Shyam Das (who sided with Braun knowing all the facts....wonder why?), and these comments were made, nobody would have batted an eye. But Ryan Braun reads this prepared speech before reporters, and suddenly he's the bad guy. He's vilified as a millionaire that "threw the little guy under the bus."

 

No, going back to the statement made earlier, the sample was not handled properly. Major League Baseball did immediately amend the wording of the Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program after the Braun overturn, yes. But the chain of custody was still compromised. There's not a forensics lab anywhere in the United States that would accept a sample like Braun's, and enter it into evidence in a legal case. There was a FedEx 24 hour center frequently used by collectors just a few miles from Miller Park, and not out of Laurenzi Jr's way home from the stadium. He could have, and was indeed required to drop the sample off at the facility, just as Braun read in his statement. When he was unable to do so, he was to store it in a very specific way, secured within his home. He didn't secure the package. It was not refrigerated. In fact, it was shoved into a Tupperware container, and left out on a desk in his basement--for two days. And the chaperone that accompanied Laurenzi Jr to the ballpark, the one that was supposed to attest to the integrity of the collection process? It was the collector's son.

 

If I were the defense attorney in a civil case, and my client's sample had been handled in this manner, the case would be thrown out with an apology from the bench.

 

Are we really going to assess that Ryan Braun has perpetrated "an endless list of terrible things?" If that's indeed the case, I think a few people here need to reassess what constitutes a "terrible thing." A woman that walked into the Youtube HQ today and opened fire with a handgun. That is a terrible thing. A professional athlete breaking a rule to heal an injury, and then saying some inflammatory things that got the self-righteous social media-verse in a tizzy hardly constitutes a crime against humanity. A little perspective, people, my God.

 

It's been six plus years. Life is too short to cling to hate, especially over something so utterly meaningless. If you dislike Ryan Braun, fine. More power to you. I don't now, nor have I ever, because I know how quickly things can get distorted today, and how few people actually seek to confirm the veracity of what's being reported. But if you "hate" Ryan Braun, you really need to look inward, because you have some deeper issues.

[SenatorShriv]

I don’t support using banned substances in sports. Period.

 

That being said, it isn’t all the same... using a cream one time to help recover from an injury feels different to me than regularly taking substances designed to increase strength, speed, etc. it always felt to me like there should be different tiers of punishment based off what they were doing and Braun’s was a pretty low level infraction.

 

The debacle that surrounded it made it worse. I dont live in Wisconsin so every time baseball came up, this came up and I stood up for him for a long time during the process. I personally felt like I got burned a bit there and wish he would have handled it way different.

 

All that said, I don’t think that is why he gets booed so much. I think he has a quietly confident and cocky demeanor that doesn’t play well with the general public. Outspoken and brash players with similar struggles seem to get dismissed as “just being them”. The “good guys “ find a way to skate through as well. Braun just never had the PR people around him to build a persona that would withstand or re-endear people to him quickly.

 

I hope he has an amazing couple of years with the crew and enjoy every time he comes up to bat.

[Rock hard Brouhard]

If the man keeps hitting walk offs, his approval rating will skyrocket.

[JimH5]

He took a banned substance and repeatedly lied about it. He questioned the integrity of the process and the integrity of the test administrator. He stained his own reputation & the reputation of the franchise. He won an MVP award that he might not have earned. He created friction in the clubhouse and in the fanbase. He did all of those things.

 

He has also been a model citizen since then. He made the phone calls and passed out the turkeys and signed the autographs and has shown contrition. And he's been a good player the whole time. He has moved around the diamond to help the team.

 

So, he's hated because of the stuff in the first paragraph, AND because those who hate him aren't willing to recognize the stuff in the second paragraph.

[JohnBriggs12]

He's done plenty of damage with his bat, and some of the hatred shown by opposing fans, especially within the division, is a sign of respect for his ability.

[tmwiese55]

Loved the Stache's post, well said. Keep things in perspective.

 

One thing I thought that last night when he was giving the onfield interview after the game is that seemed like the most honest, open, and just natural talking I remember from him. Most things he says are so canned/cliche but last night seemed much different. Just back to seeming just enjoying the game, idk maybe it was because he was freezing cold.

[torts]

If people can hate Rickie Weeks for life because he didn't want to commit 50 errors in the outfield I think anyone has the right to hate Braun for an endless list of terrible things he did.

 

This whole discussion has moved beyond the realm of hyperbole. The endless list of terrible things he did? Please.

 

He had a calf injury. He played the entire season with it, and deservedly won the MVP because he performed at a high level (and yes, I think he deserved it over Kemp. Braun performed at a high level in a pennant race. Kemp had no pressure to perform, as the Dodgers were out of the race before the All Star break). The Brewers went to the playoffs for the second time in a quarter century, and had one chance to make a run at the World Series, as many key players were not going to return. Braun made a decision to use a banned substance to expedite healing on that calf injury. He made a mistake, but given the circumstances, anybody here who says they wouldn't do the same thing, or, at the very least, consider it, is being a hypocrite. By the way, I've seen nothing that conclusively proves that the substance he used, while banned by MLB, was, in fact, a PED. Somewhere, the whole "Braun used a PED" thing has been milled about in the echochamber that is the internet, and it's stuck-just like the "fact" that Braun called Dino Laurenzi Jr an anti-semite, when not one, but two of the players he "called to back his claim up", Joey Votto and Troy Tulowitzki, have both gone on record as saying that the calls never happened.

 

A leaked test showed that he failed a steroid test. That should have never happened, and it's easy to dismiss that as irrelevant. But is it? At the very least, it shows that somebody was out to besmirch Ryan Braun. The source of the information is irrelevant. We know it wasn't MLB, but somebody connected with the investigation.

 

Braun has PR people, and a legal defense team. He read a statement claiming his innocence, and his words came across as defiant. Do any of you really think he wrote that speech by himself? That he wasn't heavily coached by his defense team as to what he should say?

 

So, what "terrible things" has Braun done? He rubbed some cream on his calf, and, when the results of his confidential test and appeal were leaked, he read a statement calling the process, and the collector, into question.

 

How awful! Cast him into the seventh circle of hell next to Hitler (saving a spot for Justin Bieber).

 

How, exactly, did he throw Dino Laurenzi Jr under the bus? This is a completely untenable position to take, in my eyes. "We learned some things about how the sample was stored, how it was collected, we learned things about the collector." Well, Holy Jesus Christ, Braun created reasonable doubt in his statement. No lawyer has ever done that before. Had it been a lawyer appearing before a court, or in MLB's case, an independent arbitrator like Shyam Das (who sided with Braun knowing all the facts....wonder why?), and these comments were made, nobody would have batted an eye. But Ryan Braun reads this prepared speech before reporters, and suddenly he's the bad guy. He's vilified as a millionaire that "threw the little guy under the bus."

 

No, going back to the statement made earlier, the sample was not handled properly. Major League Baseball did immediately amend the wording of the Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program after the Braun overturn, yes. But the chain of custody was still compromised. There's not a forensics lab anywhere in the United States that would accept a sample like Braun's, and enter it into evidence in a legal case. There was a FedEx 24 hour center frequently used by collectors just a few miles from Miller Park, and not out of Laurenzi Jr's way home from the stadium. He could have, and was indeed required to drop the sample off at the facility, just as Braun read in his statement. When he was unable to do so, he was to store it in a very specific way, secured within his home. He didn't secure the package. It was not refrigerated. In fact, it was shoved into a Tupperware container, and left out on a desk in his basement--for two days. And the chaperone that accompanied Laurenzi Jr to the ballpark, the one that was supposed to attest to the integrity of the collection process? It was the collector's son.

 

If I were the defense attorney in a civil case, and my client's sample had been handled in this manner, the case would be thrown out with an apology from the bench.

 

Are we really going to assess that Ryan Braun has perpetrated "an endless list of terrible things?" If that's indeed the case, I think a few people here need to reassess what constitutes a "terrible thing." A woman that walked into the Youtube HQ today and opened fire with a handgun. That is a terrible thing. A professional athlete breaking a rule to heal an injury, and then saying some inflammatory things that got the self-righteous social media-verse in a tizzy hardly constitutes a crime against humanity. A little perspective, people, my God.

 

It's been six plus years. Life is too short to cling to hate, especially over something so utterly meaningless. If you dislike Ryan Braun, fine. More power to you. I don't now, nor have I ever, because I know how quickly things can get distorted today, and how few people actually seek to confirm the veracity of what's being reported. But if you "hate" Ryan Braun, you really need to look inward, because you have some deeper issues.

 

be still my beating heart <3 <3 <3

 

love this post.

 

the only good thing to come out of this is the GIF from Korea news where they animated Braun in the locker room injecting himself in the neck with PEDs

[topper09er]

Well, Holy Jesus Christ, Braun created reasonable doubt in his statement. ...But Ryan Braun reads this prepared speech before reporters, and suddenly he's the bad guy. He's vilified as a millionaire that "threw the little guy under the bus."

 

Umm, do you not realize his statement was all a lie, he knew it was a lie when he was reading it, and admitted to it afterwards. Yes, he is in fact a bad guy for knowingly lying about something in public. He did throw many people under the bus who publicly supported him and then had to eat crow, both "big time guys" like Aaron Rodgers and the "little guy" like us.

 

I still don't care because I don't see how using something to recover from an injury can be considered cheating anymore when we allow pitchers to remove a part of their leg and have it surgically put in their arm which sometimes allows them to throw harder than before the surgery. That is considered a modern science miracle, but using some cream or taking some pill is cheating.

[tmwiese55]

Every person here has lied about something. And in this case he wasn't lying about the handling being completely wrong, that was true and there is a legit chance that mishandling actually did cause the failed test and what he was doing might not have been enough to trip the test. So what he lied about is the same thing every player caught lied about initially. Either way, just think logically. What moron is going to come out and admit to it right after winning his appeal? OJ didn't get acquitted and then hold a press conference saying he did it. It took him 10 years to give an interview, jk, and still spoke vaguely.

[topper09er]

Every person here has lied about something. And in this case he wasn't lying about the handling being completely wrong, that was true and there is a legit chance that mishandling actually did cause the failed test and what he was doing might not have been enough to trip the test. So what he lied about is the same thing every player caught lied about initially. Either way, just think logically. What moron is going to come out and admit to it right after winning his appeal? OJ didn't get acquitted and then hold a press conference saying he did it. It took him 10 years to give an interview, jk, and still spoke vaguely.

 

What does everyone here lying have to do with anything.

 

It does not matter how the sample was handled, Braun knew he broke the rules and used a banned substance.

 

The real question is, what kind of moron would come out and hold the press conference he did knowing you were actually guilty. How about a one sentence press release of "I am glad that my suspension was overturned and I look forward to a successful season with the Milwaukee Brewers"

[tmwiese55]

Because you're vilifying someone for something everyone does just because he's a celebrity so it's hypocritical. If he's a bad guy then so is everyone else. Yes, it does matter about the handling, he was not lying about the handling being wrong yet he's being accused of that. He made the same lie that every caught player does initially, yet he's treated with more scorn.

 

totally agree on the statement and I said that pages ago, he should have issued a humble thing saying he's glad the process worked and that he can't talk about it any further. Then let it die. But as far as being a moron, it wasn't that dumb of a PR move to be so boisterously innocent in order to try and save his image and convince everyone he actually did nothing wrong. He had no inkling they'd go on a witch hunt for Arod so he thought that would be the end of it. Certainly more logical than admitting to doing it. Hindsight though, yea he should have realized something could come out since someone else already leaked on him once and just been humble.