pebadger

At the Turin Olympics a US skeleton driver was banned from competition for testing positive. What he took was a harmless hair growth medication. He had always listed this medication on the forms that are part of the testing protocol, even though it was not listed as a banned substance. He didn't list in on the forms at the Turin Olympics, though the US federation still knew he took the drug. What he didn't know was that the medication had been reclassified as a banned substance, as it was thought to be a masking agent. Since he didn't list it, he tested positive without valid excuse and was banned from competition and suspended for a year. Everyone knew he wasn't a cheat, and the testers admitted as much, but rules are rules. After the Turin Games, the medication was taken off the banned list. He competed in Vancouver. I tell this story, because what is and is not banned, and the science behind all this stuff continues to evolve. Many things that are banned are banned because the testers think that those substances make it harder to catch cheaters. Most often they are right, but hey can be right at one time and then things change and something that was a problem before isn't a problem now. And all the while the substance in question can be completely benign from the perspective of being a "PED". We have a good idea how these things work, but nobody has an omniscient understanding of biochemistry. Sometimes you get results that don't make a lot of sense. This can happen for a lot of reasons. The response of the testers has been to pronounce these results as "positives" if they meet the criteria, and force the accused to sort it out. This stuff is complicated. The chemistry is complicated. The rules are complicated. Anybody who tries to make it simple is just that: simple.

One huge problem here is that the whole drug testing regime is extraordinarily complicated. These stories, when there is an actual good-faith dispute, a full of nuance. Most of the reporters covering it don't fully understand the subject matter, and nuance, even if it is understood by reporters and editors, doesn't sell well with mass audiences. The stories take a long time to explain. Just the background info is daunting. Nobody wants to read about chemistry. Everyone wants to turn everything into good vs evil. It's fun and easy.

While the McCarthy reference was over the top. The idea that people are believing Braun blindly is ridiculous. He could be guilty but with the stuff that came out the people who accused him of using PED's already look wrong. That tends to happen when you run with a story that is sourced only by people who are willing to provide only a single titillating fact about a story in violation of confidentiality provisions that are there to provide some of the only protections the accused have in this process. Braun may be innocent. He may be guilty. The rush to judgment is appalling. It's also totally expected, which to me is even more appalling.

His T level may not have been high. All we know (probably) is that his T/E *ratio* was "out of spec", which triggered another test. These tests are not 100% diagnostically conclusive as to exactly what a person may have ingested to caused a given result. They are highly suggestive of doping, but not conclusive. The burden of disproving that assumption is on the athlete. As most of them are not biochemists, and it's hard even for experts to say exactly what happened in any given situation, it's a tough row to hoe to prove yourself "innocent". If there is something highly amiss here from the "usual" doping case, that will help Braun, but it's not a slam dunk for him. The general presumption on the part of the testers is that he just found a new way to cheat, or messed something up in his doping that produced the weird result.

Viagra shouldn't. I don't think Cialis should either, but I'm not as confident in saying that. The kicker, generally, in all of these cases is that much of this testing is highly complex and rests upon assumptions. Very robust assumptions to be sure, but nothing in this world is infallible. When a finding is made that exogenous T is present in somebodies' system, that finding is almost never based on actually finding exogenous T in that person's system. It's based on finding OTHER substances which strongly imply that exogenous T is/was present. (Your body doesn't store most things it takes in. It metabolizes them and we end up with the products of that process, so that's the stuff we have to look for). Note also that Braun's testosterone was not necessarily "jacked". His ratio of testosterone to epi (his T/E ratio) was above the tripwire standard of 4:1. The ration can be high because of either the T or the E portion of the ratio. Regardless, it's the "failure" of this T/E test which leads to the secondary CIR/GC testing which attempts to further identify if there is an substance foriegn to the athlete that is at play in creating that ratio. Suffice to say, it's a complex situation that is not just some sort of middle school chem lab project.

Here's how this system works: If you fail a test, you're guilty. Because the testers say you failed a test, and they are presumed to be infallible in this judgment. They are not required to prove the validity of thier test in anything approaching a fully adversarial process that is designed to find the truth. Their result is the truth. It is not evidence of the truth, it is the truth. At least it is the truth that will be broadcast to the world. Being guilty, anyone who wants to gets to call you a liar and a cheat. They get to say that everything you've done in your career is tainted, a fraud Your reputation, in your profession at least and possibly in every facet of your life, is destroyed. It's really easy to bang on athletes that get caught up in these situations. They make lots of money in a job that better than most of us can imagine, a good deal of them are at least vaguely unlikeable for any number of reasons, and the prevailing sentiment is that so many of them cheat that anyone accused is probably guilty of something. Just take a minute to remember this: there is no complex process created by man that infallible. None. As such, there will be times when people who have done nothing wrong will be punished for wrongdoing. Because the process is complicated and flawed, we never really know who these people are, or we wouldn't subject them to such injustice in the first place (provided that justice matters to us). All we can do is do our best to create processes that will operate with a minimum of error. In the US criminal justice system, the rights of the accused are protected by the highest law of land. We require that guilt be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. We require a whole bunch of other stuff (right to jury trial, right to confront witnesses, etc.) that we learn about in our high school civics classes. Even with all these protections and assurances, innocent people still lose thier freedom. None of those basic freedoms applies in drug testing cases such as these. It's true that this isn't a criminal proceeding. At some point, however, I think it is fair to ask if we can just shrug off much of the patent unfairness in this system simply because we're not sending anyone to jail. At some point doesn't the value your lifelong reputation and the respect of peers and the public at least approach the value of other things we hold dear? The truth of the matter is that a corporation that is accused of polluting public waters and which faces only civil penalties has more rights than an athlete does in this situation, and is required to prove nothing in its own defense. The athlete has no right to jury trial. He has no right to fully confront witnesses against him. The athlete is presumed guilty. The athlete must "prove a negative" if he is to have any real chance of complete exoneration. His best real chance of winning the case is to win on a "technicality", which leaves him open after the fact to being viewed as a lucky cheat who "beat the system". Don't take my word for it. Read up on how these drug arbitrations work. When done at the international sports level, the 3-member arbitration panel which rules on the appeal is itself almost invariably stacked against the athlete 2-1. This is not a system set up to find the truth. It is a system set up to catch "drug cheats" and it is a system which imposes almost 100% of the risk of error on the accused. Make no mistake. What Braun's people are doing right now is not really an attempt to "prove his innocence", though their success or failure in their endeavor will be portrayed as such (or not) when a ruling on the appeal is made. There really isn't a lot of room for quaint notions like innocence and truth in this process, and the less they think along those lines the better. Anybody who thinks otherwise is missing the point. They just need to find a way, as overwhelmingly hard as it is, to win the appeal. Then they have to sort out the damage later. The sad thing, from my perspective, is that given the way the system is constructed, Braun winning the appeal will likely give us no more insight into his ultimate guilt or innocence than does the initial "positive" finding that got us where we are now.

Exactly. This is looking more and more like it is just horrible journalism by ESPN, out to sensationalize something that should have never come to light. There has been no suspension. The 2nd test was negative. Until we learn more about this "second test", I wouldn't put too much weight on the result of that test. If it's a test of a different sample, it really doesn't change the fact that the first test was positive. In the eyes of the testing regime, a positive test is a positive test. To the world, to whom the message is transmitted simplistically and without nuance by the media, it means you're a cheat. In a world were there are lots of shades of grey it's nice to have a place where we can clearly identify the white hats and the black hats. Drug testing in sports is one of those places.

Another scenario for thought: You work at a place that requires you to take drug tests. You're in a high profile position with a visible organization. Now imagine your HR person approaches you and tells you that you've failed a drug test and you're going to lose your job. You know that you didn't take the drug for which you tested positive. How are you going to handle this? Now assume that, to keep your job, YOU are the one that has to prove that you didn't take the drug. How are you going to prove you didn't do something? Every time you say you didn't, they say "We have a positive test that says you did." How do you keep your job? How do you salvage your reputation. That's pretty much the situation Braun is in, if he is in fact innocent. His word means nothing. He is presumed guilty. He can't explain why the test says he's guilty because he most likely doesn't know why the test says he's guilty. If there is something in his sample that he can't explain, he's guilty. Even if he can explain it, most explanations will nonetheless leave him adjudged as guilty. If he rushes to explain his situation without fully understanding it, and then more facts come to light which cast doubt upon his explanation, it looks like he was just making up a story to further his denials. If proclaims his innocence, he is just another cheater in denial. If he offers no explanation, he is assumed not to have one. This is the system we have built to root out drug cheats. There are some good reasons for having the system we have. There are also minimal protections for those who stand accused of wrongdoing. I guess since we're not sending anyone to prison with the system that makes it OK, right? Right?

A question to think about: When a guy is accused of a crime and refuses to testify, a lot of people will exclaim "If he was really innocent, he'd tell us what really happened"? Why is it when a guy is accused of PED use and immediately denies it, and then fights the charges in whatever forum is available, a lot of people ask "What else is he going to say? Do these guys think we're stupid." Being fair-minded is hard.

A considerable number of substances on the "banned substance list" are not PEDs. They are on the list because they can interefere with testing for "actual" PEDs. Then, when a player tests positive for a substance on the banned substance list, media outlets sometimes get lazy and say an athlete tested positive for PEDs, when they should actually report that a player tested positive for a "banned substance". It's semantics. I'm not saying that's what happened in Braun's case, but it does happen. In response to your earlier question about "synthetic" testoterone, steroidal substances that are derived from plant-based sources interact with the body differently than testosterone produced by your own body. The tests that determine these things find the byproducts of these chemical interactions. They don't find "steroids" themselves.

The case is not fully adjudicated. Until it is, nobody is supposed to have the information other than the MLB testing folks and the player. Not even the club is supposed to know. the mere appearance of impropriety is enough to seriously taint a player's career. Whoever leaked this is a miserable [expletive deleted]. As for Braun's people, even if he is innocent, it's better for them not to get into specifics right now. These issues are extraordinarily complicated. Even Braun's folks may not have all the information right now. Lacking that, it's better to say as little as possible. If you say something now, and vary from that position even in the slightest later on, people will characterize that as Braun "changing his story". There is a lot of detail in this story that will be lost in the bigger picture. These things are always sold as morality plays and the player is always the bad guy. The sad fact is, even if Braun is "innocent" in the way that almost everyone understands that term, there is a very, very good chance that he will be suspended anyway. If you think hat fairness to the individual of importance to anyone in this story (other than Braun), you're missing the point. (edit: language --1992)

Remember this: it doesn't matter whether Braun is a "juicer" or not. All that matters is whether he "failed" the test, and Braun is in the legal position of having to prove that he didn't fail it. It's kind of like "drunk driving". It doens't matter if you're impaired. If you fail the blood/breath test, you've already broken the law, regardless of whether you're impaired or not. The test is not just evidence, it's a case all by itself.

The "second test" language needs to be fleshed out a lot. In most cases, when a sample is drawn, the substance to be tested it split into an "A" sample and a "B" sample. The "B" sample can be used to "double check" the "A" sample results if need be. It could be that Braun's "B" sample was tested and came up negative. I tend to doubt this and I tend to doubt that that's what the "second test" language is about. If Braun's B sample has been tested and the result was at odds with those of teh "A" sample, the case would already be done. It could be that only now has the B sample been tested and the results not yet presented to the arbitration panel, but I tend to doubt this. Here is likely what happened. Braun had a sample taken. That sample was tested and a "positive" T/E result occurred. At that point, the sample was sent out for a "second test", a gas chromatography test, which provided a result which indicated that Braun had "synthetic" testosterone in his system. (The T/E test is incapable of providing this determination). This is almost certainly the "second test" discussed in the initial media reports. If Braun submitted another sample after the fact which was subsequently tested and come up negative, that will have little bearing on the results/ramifications of the first test, unless there are some extraordinary circumstancesat work here. We don't have any official word yet as to what that situation is.

Somebody leaked this. MLB probably can't say anything under the provisions of the CBA while this thing is being arbitrated. If it had nevef been leaked, and Braun was cleared, nobody ever would have known. Somebody wanted this out, and they took it to the one of the guys who wrote the book on Bonds.

I hate to say this but the horrible, horrible reality here is that even after they rule on the suspension here you probably won't have much more to go on in terms of objective evidence of guilt or innocence that you do now. They have a test result. To MLB's tester's, Braun is already guilty. Braun is in the almost impossible logical position of proving a negative. There isn't going to be any sort of trial on the merits of his case. There will be a very narrow review of the test and testing procedure. He is, in all likelihood, going to be suspended. Whether that means he did anything intentionally wrong is almost irrelevant to the adjudication.

Braunie can say it ain't so all he wants. Lots of people have already irrevocably categorized him. Even if he wins the the appeal, it will likely be on what will invariably be termed "a technicality" (as that's the only real way you CAN win one of these appeals). To a large degree, the "truth" no longer matters in terms of how this thing is adjudicated. In the end, you can choose to believe Braun or not. What happens from here on out, short of a full confession by Braun that he's a doper, is not going to give us any ironclad proof that he is "guilty" or not "guilty". The accusation alone is enough to taint him forever, regardless of the ultimate truth.

If you want examples of guys that have tested "positive" and had their results overturned, a number of players from the Mexican national team tested postive for the steroid clenbutrol this past summer at the Gold Cup. Their suspensions were throw out when they won their argument that they had eaten tainted beef. (Mexican beef operations are notorious for jucing their stock). I urge those of you who want to really look at this thing with an unbiased eye to learn more about the testing system. I think you may find it eye-opening in terms of the "legal" standards involved.

none of that really excuses synthetic testosterone though. I'm not trying to excuse or diminish anything. Just trying to provide some info on a subject now which I have some knowledge. There is a lot that we need to learn yet. If Braun admits to wrongdoing he's dead to me. There are lots of ways that he could be "innocent" in this in the sense that most reasonable people understand, and still be screwed.

It should be made clear that this hasn't been officially "announced" by anybody. Somebody leaked this to Fainaru-Wada. Now that it's out, people have to respond, at least as minimally as Braun's people did.

To clarify, something, Braun's T/E *ratio* was probably outside the "normal" range. That doesn't necessarily mean his T count was high. It could be that his E count was low. I think it is importnat to note that T/E ratios vary from person to person. In fact, the range of "accepatable" T/E ratios has changed over the years. What used to be a "negative" test is now a "positive" test. That's why they often use gas chromatography to further investigate samples which have an anomalous T/E result. Suffice it so say that the GC testing is fairly complex. It is possible to mess it up. There is some "art" to it. All that said, I have no reason to think Braun's sample didn't have exogenous testosterone in it. And if it did, Braun is probably screwed, no matter how it got there.

He is so screwed, no matter if he did anything wrong or not. And there is no real system in place for him to vindicate himself. The allegation alone is enough to hamper his career significantly. These tests are not 100% reliable. Nothing is perfect. This is not a CSI-type deal where they can say with any certainty exaclty what he took. My preliminary read on this is that Braun "failed" a T/E ratio test. When that happened, that sample was further tested with gas crhomatography, the results of which indicate that there is "artificial" or exogenous testosterone in his system. Assuming the test was properly done, retesting the same sample will yield the same "positive" result. I'm guessing there is very little chance that Braun can exonerate himself is he is, in fact, "innocent" here. The very nature of disputing these things is heavily slanted against the athlete. I, for one, don't believe Ryan was juicing or intentionally cheating. There is nothing in his past or anything we know about the guy to indicate that he would be. I could be terribly wrong about all of that. If I am wrong, even his apology won't repair him in my eyes. On the other hand, even if he wasn't doing anything intenionally wrong, he can, and probably will, still end up suspended and tainted. If that happens, and he is indeed truly innocent, I can't imagine how crushed he must be by all of this. There are few things worse in this world than being convicted for something you did not do, and having no practical recourse to address that wrong.

Literally hadn't watched a single out of the WS until I turned it on in the top of the 9th tonight. I'm now going to gouge out my own eyeballs.

Have a nice winter everybody.

The Brewers have give up at least 6 runs 5 times in 11 games this postseason. They gave up 6 or more runs only 10 times in the entire second half of the regular season. Three of those were to the Cardinals. Edit: recount

Was off by two innings.