jeffy

Braun has been revealed to be a selfish creep. Not because of his use of whatever he used, but because of his previous attack of the sample collector and all his other lies. I am glad that I decided some time ago to stop following the Brewers and baseball, in fact I no longer follow any sports at all.

He also said: "Ultimately, as I sit here today, the system worked because I am innocent, and I was able to prove my innocence." So, it's a fatally flawed system that works, I guess.

Is it difficult for those who are not using anything to not have a T:E ratio of greater that 4:1? How can you expect a screen that uses that ratio to achieve perfection in catching users?

I would only say that he may have been using them. I would say it is likely there is plenty of usage still going on, no system is going to catch every violation. That does not make it "fatally flawed". What the testing does, in my opinion, is reduce the amount of using. Fewer players using and certainly those that do using at a lower dosages and using different substances than those used in the "steroid era" in order to get through the 4:1 screening ratio loophole. (4:1 is still 4x the typical or average) My opinion is mostly based on the comments by Victor Conte, such as reported here (this was from prior to the leak): http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-11-21/news/30431117_1_hgh-testing-testosterone-blood-for-human-growth

That was interesting, since in the J-S article Expert says delay would not have altered Braun drug test, his opinion was predicated on the sample being refrigerated. I think the reporter should check if the guys opinion would change based on it being stored at maybe 60-65 degrees? in the guy's basement.

It may mean nothing, but a columnist from AZ has published these comments: Digging up his earlier comments on this scene, they sound like perhaps Braun could have just been annoyed at having to pee in cup (certainly understandable). http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/DanBickley/150636

If you are going to criticize Passan, how about the fact that Braun is doing to the collector, who unlike Braun is not a public figure (or was not), just what he claims was done to him? I don't really care if Braun violated MLB drug rules, but if the collector did nothing that had any impact on the test results, then I am not at all impressed by him disingenuously saying he did not want to wrongly accuse anyone else, after having said "There were a lot of things that we learned about the collector...that made us very concerned and very suspicious about what could have actually happened" and "There were a lot of things that we heard about...the collector and some other people involved in the process that have certainly been concerning to us". He also had basically said that it is important to get the sample out of the hands of the collector because it would be "extremely easy" for him to tamper with it.

That would be important one way or the other, that the storage conditions were or were not a problem. Braun seeming to aim at tampering as the cause did not give me a lot of confidence that there will be anything like that coming from his side.

Not meant so much an analogy, just another example where not guilty does not really mean "exonerated". I would guess that to most people failure of a drug test is, rightly or wrongly, seen direct evidence of drug use and that's why they don't see this as exoneration. Ryan said, "I was able to prove my innocence." I don't think most non-Brewer fans see it that way at all. I think instead they think he was able to get the test results thrown out because of procedural errors...and that's all he proved, that the procedures that had been agreed to were not followed.

That's because their view is that he was not "exonerated", they feel he got off because of procedural errors not because he was innocent. Even some players share that view. Similarly if the police illegally search my home and find illegal drugs, the fact that the evidence found can not be used to convict me and I end up being found not guilty as a result does not "exonerate" me.

Is the 18 (or whatever the number was) FedEx locations an exaggeration? What type of FedEx facilities does MLB use for this? The FedEx website has: FedEx staffed FedEx Kinko's, now FedEx Office Self-service FedEx Authorized ShipCenter I'm assuming, at a minimum, the self service would not be used. If the collector said "I dropped in in a self -serve box at 6 PM", I would think that would be considered a questionable practice. But including self-serve seems to be the only way to get up to the number of locations that were stated.

You may be correct. If you go to their site you can get transit times. It told me if dropped off today, it could be in Montreal by Monday at noon, if dropped off Monday it would be Tuesday at noon. So there is a delay, but only 1 day, not 2 and that may be only because they don't deliver on Sunday, not because the package is not being moved.

Regarding the FedEx open/closed issue. My understanding is the collector (and MLB) claim the issue was not whether the drop off places were open, it was that the samples would not ship until Monday. Braun's side says the samples should have been left at FedEx and stored by them until Monday. MLB seems to be saying the normal procedure has been for the collector to keep them? The arbitrator apparently either agreed with Braun's side that that is what the policy specifies or that, if the collector keeps them, he needs to have documentation of what he did with them, while they were in his custody to verify proper storage and security.

I didn't actually say he did, but he said: “There were a lot of things that we learned about the collector...that made us very concerned and very suspicious about what could have actually happened,” What does that imply? Does it imply that Braun believes Dino did nothing wrong? Note that I'm not saying there is anything wrong with Braun giving that impression, if that is what he honestly believes...that he is suspicious of the collector based on the things they learned about him. I am just saying the consequences of these comments for Dino are very similar to the consequences Braun faced due to the leak, etc.

Despite his words to the contrary, it seems that Ryan has basically done to Dino what he says the testing and leak did to him. http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/ryan-bruan-comments-challenged-collector-father-son-veteran-collector-baseball-season-spring-training-article-1.1028322?localLinksEnabled=false If he did not want to blame the collector, Braun could have said that the collector believed that he was following the instructions he had been given by MLB, but that differed from the procedure that MLB and the players had agreed to and this deviation calls into question the validity of test results...or something like that. Also not surprising that the poll there, being less dominated by Brewer fans, has 65% saying he got lucky and another 10% who don't care, quite different from the more local results in the J-S poll, where 80% think he is completely innocent.