The former chosen son of Milwaukee has taken his first steps towards rebuilding his legacy. Upon the conclusion of the 2011 MLB season, Ryan Braun was perched comfortably on cloud nine. Though his Milwaukee Brewers squad lost to the eventual champion St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Championship series, Braun had completed his best season as a pro. His .332 batting average, 33 home runs, 33 steals and 111 RBIs earned him the NL MVP Award. Furthermore, in April 2011, he signed a mammoth five-year, $105 million contract extension, cementing his place in a Brewers uniform.
Braun was the anti-LeBron James. Rather than suckle at the power teat, shamelessly promoting his own image while encouraging a bidding war for his skills amongst owners, Braun treated each performance like a Game 7 and flaunted his loyalty to a small-market, consistent loser. He was an intelligent and gifted player who did not mind the limelight, but did not crave it either. Minor leaguers aspired to be him, fans strove to watch him and little girls in Wisconsin wanted to marry him. That is, until December 10, 2011.
On that day, an ESPN report leaked MLB information positing that Braun had tested positive for an elevated level of testosterone, indicating performance-enhancing drug (PED) use. Braun's newly-tarnished reputation took immediate hits: the MLB suspended him for the first 50 games of the 2012 season, slanderous articles lambasted him and some conjectured that his MVP would transfer to the Los Angeles Dodgers' Matt Kemp.
In the ensuing melee, Braun maintained his innocence. Yet, for most fans, his innocent claims evoked an image of Rafael Palmeiro wagging his finger at a congressional board only to fail his drug test several months later. In baseball, players who test positive for PEDs are deemed guilty until proven otherwise, and for good reason. Test results conducted by the esteemed World Anti-Doping Agency facilities in Montreal are infinitesimally precise.
Last week, however, Braun successfully appealed his suspension — the first successful appeal in MLB history — allowing him to take the field on Opening Day and retain his MVP trophy. In a press conference, Braun seemed visibly shaken and emotional, as he explained how MLB personnel mishandled his sample.
Obviously, Braun is not the first professional athlete to have his seemingly pristine legacy sullied. And, if he is able to get back in America's good graces, he would not be the first athlete to achieve redemption. Kobe Bryant, for example, is a fan favorite once again after prosecutors dropped a notorious sexual assault case against him in 2004.
Yet Braun's case raises an important question in sports psychology: Where do we draw the line when choosing whether or not to forgive professional athletes for their transgressions?
The MLB has proven that drugs will not be tolerated in baseball. As players like Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds and Palmeiro have discovered, no amount of accolades can outweigh even a hint of steroid use. None of the aforementioned players will ever make the Hall of Fame, although their career statistics suggest they each would have been voted through in their first years of eligibility.
Should steroid users be held to a higher standard than, say, players like Ben Roethlisberger, the Pittsburgh Steelers' quarterback who has seen multiple sexual harassment incidences? Steroid use gets forever seared into memory, whereas Americans too often belittle and forget the more serious criminal offenses of their idols. If Braun is confirmed as a steroid user in future tests, his name will be synonymous with "cheater." But, for now, fans should abstain from speculation. They should view Braun as the player who once ran out a triple so hard he crashed into the dirt yards before reaching home, and the player who has always stood by Milwaukee.
--
Zach Drucker is a senior majoring in international relations and Spanish. He can be reached at Zachary.Drucker@tufts.edu.
