Good news for fans of the Milwaukee Brewers and their whole “we’re a small market team playin’ so hard!” thing — baseball prospectus TMZ Sportz is reporting that slugger Ryan Braun’s positive test for banned substances wasn’t caused by steroids, it was caused by “medication he’s taking for a private medical issue”.
We’re told the reigning National League MVP is adamant he has not taken drugs or steroids of any kind.
One source simply told us … “The medication contained banned substances resulting in the positive test.” We’re also told prior to taking the dirty test, Braun had always tested negative for banned substances.
The nature of Braun’s medical ailment is unclear.
You’ve got to love TMZ’s helpful editorial addition of, “before he tested positive for steroids, he tested negative for steroids”. Thanks, guys. Before O.J. Simpson murdered those people he had never been a murder suspect.
There are a lot of other things to consider while wading through TMZ’s knee-deep bullshit as well, like why the doctor who prescribed the medicine to a pro baseball player wouldn’t know or consider that the steroids medicine he’s prescribing wouldn’t cause someone to test positive for steroids, or why if he did know it he wouldn’t have written Braun an exemption. Furthermore, Major League Baseball’s collevtive bargaining agreement (the same one that says you can have exemptions for situations like this) doesn’t allow you to go back and get exemptions for tests you’ve already failed.
I hope the follow-up to this story is that Braun’s private medical issue was “not hitting enough home runs”.
