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