Most Valuable Cheater?

Major League Baseball... oh what are we going to do with you.

The National League's newly crowned Most Valuable Player, Milwaukee Brewer Ryan Braun, has allegedly tested positive for using a banned substance.  Apparently the random drug test he took during the MLB playoffs this year found what I believe they are calling synthetic testosterone.  The story leaked to the press before the league had finished it's investigation.  I guess the drill is, when a player flunks a drug screen he is notified and given the option of appealing the findings.  An arbitrator listens to his story and then decides whether or not the league mandated punishment should be dished out.  From what I heard on 98.5fm in Boston this morning, if the player is apologetic, or says it was an accident, or says they used something without realizing what it is, the arbitrator is still going to slap the huge suspension onto the player, so long as the medical evidence is there.

Braun is in the process of appealing the findings, but what is he going to say that is going to overturn the suspension?  It sounds like he has to prove the test was a false positive in order to get the results thrown out.  I sincerely doubt that will happen.  It sure looks like Braun is going to get slapped with the ass kicking (not in a good way) 50 game suspension for the first offense.

And this is the newly named MVP of the National League.  Milwaukee won their division last year for the first time in 239237123 years due to having two star players who carried them.  Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder.  The team could only afford to extend the contracts of one of those two and they chose to extend Braun.  Fielder is now a free agent and should be signing with some other team any day now.  So not only will the Brewers be Fielder-less next year, but they will also be Braun-less for the first 30% of the season.  What a ball buster this is for the fans. 

There is even talk by the baseball writers, the organization that chooses the league MVPs, of re-doing the voting for the National League so that they do not have to go through the humiliation of crowning a newly minted chemical cheater as their winner. 

The question is, was it worth it?  Ryan Braun will lose 50 games next year and have to endure being labeled a cheater for the rest of his career.  At the same time, according to ESPN, his contract runs through 2020 and it will pay him a total of $150 million.  I'm sure that type of money can build a really big wall around a huge mansion to keep the neighbors' shouts of, "cheater" out of earshot.

The whole thing is just gross.