Ryan Braun busted for PED use; faces 50 day ban

[Bulldog19]

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has uncovered who the urine sample collector was.

Dino I. Laurenzi Jr. of Kenosha, Wisconsin. He's an athletic trainer unaffiliated with the Brewers who runs a sports medicine practice down there in Kenosha (about an hour south of Milwaukee, for those unfamiliar with the area).

Kenosha is filled with Cubs fans. It's fairly close to the Illinois border. I have family there, and the stores there sell both Packers and Bears clothes. Both Brewers and Cubs merchandise. Hmmm. Could Mr. Laurenzi be a Cubs fan? Is that a wiff of motive I smell there?

I have constantly detested the way that the Cubs fanbase treated Steve Bartman after the 2003 playoffs, but God help me, I hope Laurenzi gets some Bartman treatment from Brewers fans.

I see he's got a lot more professional credentials than you. Time for you to grow up and move on. Brewers gonna get 3rd, 4th place in the division this year? All of MLB conspiring against the drunks from up north?

[SHOELESSJOE3]

Duplicate.

[RubeBaker]

My opinion on Braun... Well its one or the other. Either he was juicing from day 1 or the drug test was a false positive.

I doubt its that cut and dry. It could be that he signed that enormous contract and felt pressured to keep performing at a high level, a la A-Rod.

I don't understand why a business-minded image-conscious talented ballplayer who would have everything to lose by a positive PED test would even risk it. He's also a young guy who saw what the cloud of PEDs did to Sosa, McGwire, Bonds, A-Rod, etc. There's no reason for him to use performance enhancing drugs and granted I don't know him personally, but I just see nothing in his character that would pin him as somebody likely to cheat.

Rich people don't steal? Happy people don't do drugs? Rich people don't waste money? Smart people don't take stupid risks?

It could be greed, it could be pressure, it could be that enough is not enough. There are plenty of reasons people do what they do. We just can't always understand them because we're not in their shoes.

Not comparing Braun to Tiger Woods or Kobe Bryant, but if there's anything we've learned over the years, it's that the seemingly "nice" guys can have some real nasty skeletons in their closet.

[Rich the Giants fan]

I think Ed's too far out with that............almost every MLB player, thats what he's saying.That takes in lots of players.

Well not every player, but thousands of them, and more than most people suspect, IMO. No player is beyond suspicision to me, not even guys like Omar Vizquel.

[ol' aches and pains]

From the sounds of it, it was standard procedure for collectors to take samples home when a FedEx wasn't immediately available. Perhaps that wasn't the case in this instance, but it sounds like this wasn't the first time a sample was taken home for the night.

I thought Fed Ex was immediately available. The Fed Ex Office location at 17925 W Bluemound Rd, Brookfield, Wi. is less than 10 miles from Miller Park, and open 24/7. Whether or not Braun is guilty, I find it unacceptable for the sample to be outside the chain of custody for 44 hours, or for one hour. The system has to be unimpeachable, they're dealing with people's livelihoods and reputations. What is the point of making a grown man urinate in a cup under the watchfull eye of the collector, if the collector is going to take the sample home for the weekend?

[Ubiquitous]

A courier keeping it is not outside the chain of custody. A chain of custody simply means a chronological documentation concerning the handling of whatever good you are tracking. A courier taking it home doesn't break that chain. Him leaving it on a park bench while he catches a movie does. The CBA was written with rules with this expected outcome happening at times.

page 39 of the Joint Agreement:

If the specimen is not immediately prepared for shipment, the Collector shall
ensure that it is appropriately safeguarded during temporary storage.
1. The Collector must keep the chain of custody intact.

2. The Collector must store the samples in a cool and secure location.

Now then we don't know all of the information since none of this was supposed to get out to the public so the courier keeping it might not have anything to do with the case being overturned. Something else might have happened or the arbiter could have simply made a mistake. We don't really know.

[ol' aches and pains]

A courier keeping it is not outside the chain of custody. A chain of custody simply means a chronological documentation concerning the handling of whatever good you are tracking. A courier taking it home doesn't break that chain. Him leaving it on a park bench while he catches a movie does. The CBA was written with rules with this expected outcome happening at times.

page 39 of the Joint Agreement:


Now then we don't know all of the information since none of this was supposed to get out to the public so the courier keeping it might not have anything to do with the case being overturned. Something else might have happened or the arbiter could have simply made a mistake. We don't really know.

The CBA also states in the drug testing section:
7. The Collector shall check the “FedEx” box in the section entitled “Specimen Bottles(s) Released to:” Absent unusual circumstances, the specimens should be sent by FedEx to the Laboratory on the same day they are collected.

I have yet to hear what the "unusual circumstances" were that prevented the collector from submitting the samples to Fed Ex for 44 hours, when there is a 24/7 Fed Ex Office location less than 10 miles from the ballpark. I know it was the weekend, but the sample should have been stored until Monday under the controlled conditions at the Fed Ex location, not in this guy's refrigerator. And we only have his word for it that it even was in his refrigerator. The chain of custody needs to be tightened up if this is considered acceptable collection and shipping procedure.

[bluesky5]

Steroids are going to be a part of baseball for the rest of time there is no getting around it. Guys are going to juice and maybe not to the point guys like Bonds and Sosa would, because now everyone knows it when they see it and therefore will be publicly inicted. But MLB obviously isn't going to do anything about it. Manny got his suspension reduced, because the union caimed he "served it by retiring (quitting)." Its freaking a joke. If MLB was serious they would fight these guys tooth and nail but THEY ARE NOT, more empty promises from the top. They can't even follow a due process. It is in the best interest of baseball as the poster sport for steroids and for its own personal self preservation to make sure guys get punished when they break rules. Its one thing when your fighting the union its another when you SUPPOSEDLY can't even hire someone who can move a cup of piss properly.

NO ONE IN BASEBALLS OFFICES GET ANY FLACK. Some random piss handler does? How often do these people lose piss tests? Guarantee not often, if ever. They happen to lose the most high profile piss they have? This reeks of serious freaking bullsh*t.

We all better get used to this because it is NEVER GOING AWAY.

[EdTarbusz]

I think Ed's too far out with that............almost every MLB player, thats what he's saying.That takes in lots of players.

I don't think there is a single MLB player from the last 15 years that is above suspicion when it comes to PED usage. If non-users made some noise about wanting testing in the game I would probably think different about it. I think that players would be more interested in keeping a competitive edge then in staying clean.

[Paulypal]

I agree. I'd even go so far as to say I suspect PED usage occured even further back than that. Tom House, for one, has admitted using steroids as far back as the 60's.

Really? These roids work after one use I guess. Cmon.

[Paulypal]

I doubt its that cut and dry. It could be that he signed that enormous contract and felt pressured to keep performing at a high level, a la A-Rod.

Really Rube? How about the 3 tests he passed during the 2011 season?

By the way the quote in your signature box was written by a genius.

[KevinWI]

I see he's got a lot more professional credentials than you. Time for you to grow up and move on. Brewers gonna get 3rd, 4th place in the division this year? All of MLB conspiring against the drunks from up north?

Your pathetic attempts to get me mad in every thread I post in are getting a bit silly, Mike. Are we going to debate baseball topics like men, or are you going to keep trying to get under my skin like a child?

[KevinWI]

I thought Fed Ex was immediately available. The Fed Ex Office location at 17925 W Bluemound Rd, Brookfield, Wi. is less than 10 miles from Miller Park, and open 24/7. Whether or not Braun is guilty, I find it unacceptable for the sample to be outside the chain of custody for 44 hours, or for one hour. The system has to be unimpeachable, they're dealing with people's livelihoods and reputations. What is the point of making a grown man urinate in a cup under the watchfull eye of the collector, if the collector is going to take the sample home for the weekend?

Yes. I used to use that one to ship stuff for work. I can confirm it is open 24/7.

There is another 24/7 FedEx Kinkos near General Mitchell International Airport which is south of Milwaukee and would have been on the collector's way home from Miller Park to Kenosha.

You'd think that since his whole job is to collect samples and get them to FedEx that he would, you know, know the hours and locations of FedEx. I mean, as we have seen pointed out, this guy is apparently an expert pee cup holder and has been doing it for the NBA, NHL and MLB since 2005. With all that experience, you'd think he would know where all the nearest FedEx Kinkos are and when they are open.

I'd like to know why nobody at Major League Baseball, the courier agency or the doping lab in Montreal failed to notice that the sample was collected on October 1st, but the guy didn't drop it off at FedEx Kinkos and generate a tracking number until October 3rd. Surely that should have raised some red flags?

[Bulldog19]

You'd think that since his whole job is to collect samples and get them to FedEx that he would, you know, know the hours and locations of FedEx. I mean, as we have seen pointed out, this guy is apparently an expert pee cup holder and has been doing it for the NBA, NHL and MLB since 2005. With all that experience, you'd think he would know where all the nearest FedEx Kinkos are and when they are open.

And I'm sure Ryan Braun is the first big name player he's been involved with collecting their urine sample so he just had to become famous by tainting it...

Have we heard from the guy yet? Or are we just going to have Braun and his fanboys accusing him of wrongdoing?

[KevinWI]

And I'm sure Ryan Braun is the first big name player he's been involved with collecting their urine sample so he just had to become famous by tainting it...

I don't know. There are a lot of weirdos out there. People who stalk celebrities and what not.

Have we heard from the guy yet? Or are we just going to have Braun and his fanboys accusing him of wrongdoing?

Kinda like how everybody condemned Braun 30 seconds after reading the headline on ESPN.com?