Braun is now baseball’s most compelling player. The defending league MVP tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug, but Braun won an appeal, since the drug tester broke protocol and did not immediately FedEx Braun’s sample to a lab in Montreal. (He kept it refrigerated in his home overnight). Braun has denied trying to cheat, though many suspect that he escaped on a technicality. Would a tester really be motivated to tamper with a sample? Also, the sample reportedly arrived in Canada completely sealed.
Will Braun be jeered around the majors? Or will fans offer Braun the benefit of the doubt? Or are people so sick of PEDs, so exhausted by trying to decipher guilt and innocence, that they’ll just enjoy watching Braun swing a bat? No matter, Braun is under tremendous pressure. If he suffers a serious dropoff from his .332, 33 home run, 111 RBI season from a year ago, some people will interpret such declining production as proof of his drug use. See what he did off the stuff?