If the reports are true, Ryan Braun is about to receive a lengthy suspension from the game of baseball. Amidst all of the players connected with Anthony Bosch’s Biogenesis clinic Braun’s story is, by far, the saddest. By Jesse Dougherty.
Ryan Braun’s career has gone from refreshing to frustrating in a few year’s time
Jesse Dougherty-
After Anthony Bosch agreed to give the MLB pertinent information on the recent steroid wave, renewed disappointment is inevitable. With the help of Bosch and the Biogenesis clinic, baseball is about to be slapped across the face one more time.
Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds breaking sacred records set by scared players wasn’t enough. Neither was the Mitchell Report, which threw baseball into the biggest frenzy of its proud history. Now, a group of players who were thought to be an honest Segway are just as dirty as their predecessors.
It’s not A-Rod, because baseball and its loyal patrons have already written him off. His ongoing connection with steroids and numerous off-field antics have boiled over to a point of no return. It’s not upsetting that he’s about to go down. We’re all over him. It’s not Nelson Cruz or Melky Cabrera because let’s face it, their minimal marks on the game could be forgotten in a few year’s time, and it’s not the list of average players whose names have surfaced with Bosch.
It’s Ryan Braun, the walking reason why this all stings so bad.
There are a few reasons why Braun’s name holds so much weight in the PED conversation. After the 90’s turned the early 2000’s into a hitting machine, baseball did it all it could to bring purity back to the game. The Mitchell Report rocked baseball in December of 2011 and at that time, the game needed a group of players to pull it out of the darkest period of its existence.
There stood Braun, fresh off his Rookie of the Year season and gallantly riding a wave of success that screamed “change.” The Brewers’ 24-year old third baseman (turned outfielder) was at the forefront of a movement to bring baseball to a cleaner, vintage time. It wasn’t just his lightning quick hands, rare ability to hit for a high average and an abundance of home runs, or the youthful pace that he played with. It was the sobering feeling of watching Braun, a young hitting star, strangle the league without the help of PEDs.
Then BAM. Braun wins the NL MVP award in 2011 and is connected to steroid use shortly thereafter. After he appealed the suspension and cleared his name, the MLB put him under close watch where he was until 2013. Then his name showed up in the first reports of Bosch’s Miami clinic and there has been no turning back since.
After Braun won his appeal after winning the MVP we all let out a big, collective, sigh. He was one of baseball’s modern heroes responsible for the transition from two locker room ideologies. The sport, almost overnight, transformed into a medical race where those rendered strong survived. Then Braun scooped up the league and, along with his clean band of brothers, carried it towards a brighter future. So to believe that he was cheating in the process was just out of the question, because it went against all the progress the game had seemingly made. That’s why it was such a relief when he won his appeal, and that’s why his connection with the Biogenesis clinic should have all baseball fans writing him off, completely.
In baseball, there are so many occurrences that we couldn’t make up in the most romantic novels. Like Andy Pettitte winning his 250th game on the same day that his son is drafted by the Yankees. Like Domonic Brown’s tumultuous rise to the Phillies’ lineup only to submerge himself in one of the hottest streaks in baseball’s recent history. And like Braun, whose undying thirst for success has led to a depressingly sharp demise. At one time, his swing was saving baseball. Now it’s clear it was actually soiling it all along.
Reports have come from all corners of sports media that say that Braun is set to receive a 100-game suspension when Bosch’s cooperation with the MLB comes to complete fruition. But until then, he plays on. He continues to jog out to left field, step into the batter’s box, and put on the uniform that gave him a household name. Should Braun receive this suspension in the near future there will be laughs, there will be tears, and there will be closure. Closure that he’s just as much of a cheater as those he was cleaning up for, closure that we wasted our time believing in him, and closure that baseball entered a cycle in the 90’s that has proved to be inescapable.
Beat the Streak
As an aspiring journalist I often say that my plan is to write a book, a sports book, at some point of my career. I think the first place I would look is baseball’s steroid era as a topic because let’s face it, as gruesome as it it is equally fascinating in the landscape of sports history.
Content Streak: 17
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