Ryan Braun tests positive for PED

[alnorth]

Originally Posted by mnchiefsguy

This seems like common sense to me. Given its importance, should a urine sample be kept at some guys house on a desk in a tupperware dish? Again, there were 12...not one, not two...but 12 Fed Ex stations open from which the sample could have been shipped from.

Again, MLB agreed to the strict standard...they even agreed that the burden of proof regarding the chain of evidence was on them.

I agree that Braun got off completely on a technicality...but MLB agreed to the rules, and should be made to play by them. If the tables were reversed, management would not hesitate to hold the players accountable to the letter of the law.

I would not characterize the technicality as meaningless.

You might be misunderstanding me. I'm not necessarily saying the arbitrator made the wrong decision, I don't know the fine details of baseball's drug policy, baseball appeal precedent, etc. I'm not a Brewers fan or have any direct interest in the NL Central race, so I don't really care about that.

I'm interested in whether Braun was guilty, and whether the collector acted reasonably. The answer is yes to both, and Braun would have been nailed by every other sport who tests for this stuff in the world. I don't care if there were eleventy zillion Fedex locations open, I didn't know they were open on Saturday either. Its arguably this guy's job to know every fine archaic rule surrounding collection, but no one else has this idiotic "must ship immediately if possible or the test is void" rule.

It is a meaningless technicality because the violation of the rule had no impact on the result of the test.