Ryan Braun Named NL MVP

[MiamiHomer]

Maybe I'm wrong but who cares that protocol wasn't followed unless there's a chance that it triggered a false positive. If he really got off only because protocol wasn't followed, how can anyone doubt that he did it?

And I understand that false positives happen but, like I said, they split the sample in two for a reason. The odds of just one test resulting in a random false positive isn't good. The odds of both separate tests resulting in random false positives has to be just astronomically low.

The reason the protocol is there is because it's been negotiated by the union and MLB to have a clear understanding of how the whole process is handled, is it not? He took various other tests throughout the year that followed the correct protocol and came back clean. I think having the sample sit with the courier for almost 2 days before it was sent to the lab leaves plenty of room for lawyers to question the validity and reliability of the test. I'd probably lean to him having, in fact, taken some sort of banned substances but I do think the manner in way the sample was handled so be taken seriously since it's something the MLB and union had agreed upon (which has now recently been changed).

[CrimsonCane]

Maybe I'm wrong but who cares that protocol wasn't followed unless there's a chance that it triggered a false positive.

Doesn't the very fact that protocol wasn't followed create a presumption that something could have been done to trigger a positive sample? This is a chain of custody issue. Braun's people were able to show that there was an almost 2 day window of time where there is no documentation on what is happening with these samples.

Does a urine sample sitting in some dude's basement for 2 days magically create a sample with synthetic testosterone? Of course not. But the point is that we can never be certain that the sample was actually in that guys basement undisturbed that whole time. That doubt automatically creates the possibility that something could have been done to trigger a false positive test.

[Mainge]

Yeah, fair enough.

[MiamiHomer]

I feel special that my explanation is similar to what my brother said, just not as elegant. It gives me hope that I'm not a complete idiot about this!

[Beef]

You also plead everything you can and sort it out later. I'm not critiquing his prevailing the way he did, I'm simply dumbfounded by the notion that "truth is on [his] side."

If having a sample sit for 24 hours creates elevated levels of synthetic testosterone, then sure, the truth is there, but Braun never contested the sample as being tampered with, which, if he's going to puff his chest and say he's clean and his time to first didn't improve (lol at that too) that also seems like a reasonable argument to make...which he didn't.

You already made up one quote and used that quote to fit into the reason you were apparently looking for to hate the guy. He said he doesn't know what happened during the 44 hour period when it was improperly handled. It's true, he doesn't. He couldn't possibly know. I'm not false positive that if he had said that somebody must have taken it and definitely tampered with it and testosterone'd the shit out of it, you'd say something like, "wow, that fucking Braunstein has literally no idea what happened with his sample but he's blaming some guy and acting like they were out to get him." He doesn't know what happened during that time, he has no idea, couldn't possibly have an idea. Biased guy is looking for reason to fit that bias?

[Jorge18]

The increasingly combative dispute between Major League Baseball and Ryan Braun grew louder Tuesday when Dino Laurenzi Jr., the drug test collector who handled Braun’s urine sample in October, said that he followed protocol when he took the sample home instead of sending it directly to a testing laboratory.

“I followed the same procedure in collecting Mr. Braun’s sample as I did in the hundreds of other samples I collected under the program,” Laurenzi said in a statement, referring to the drug testing program administered by Major League Baseball and the players union. “At no point did I tamper in any way with the samples.”

Laurenzi, a drug test collector for Comprehensive Drug Testing, the company hired by Major League Baseball and the players union to collect samples from players, has been at the center of a storm since Friday, when Braun raised questions in a news conference about why his sample and those of two other players were not immediately taken to a FedEx shipping office and spent the weekend in Laurenzi’s house.

Laurenzi’s decision to take the samples home and the resulting gap in the chain of custody were the main reasons an arbitrator reversed Braun’s 50-game suspension for failing the drug test. Braun is the first major league player known to have won an appeal of a suspension for violating the league’s drug policy.

In a statement, Laurenzi said he followed established protocol by taking the samples home because by the time he left Miller Park that Saturday in October, the last FedEx flights of the day had left. It was better to keep the samples in a secure location than leave them in a FedEx office, where they could have been tampered with or not properly refrigerated.

His employer, C.D.T., has told collectors to keep samples in their possession when they are unable to be shipped, Laurenzi said.

“The protocol has been in place since 2005 when I started with C.D.T., and there have been other occasions when I have had to store samples in my home for at least one day, all without incident,” Laurenzi said in his statement.

Without naming Laurenzi directly, Braun suggested there were questions about his character and the possibility that Laurenzi or his son, who accompanied him to the stadium that day, might have doctored the sample or inadvertently compromised it.

“There were a lot of things that we learned about the collector, about the collection process, about the way the entire thing works, that made us very concerned and very suspicious about what could have actually happened,” Braun said at the news conference Friday, at the Brewers’ training camp in Phoenix.

Braun’s veiled allegations have “caused great emotional distress for me and my family,” Laurenzi said. “I have worked hard my entire life, have performed my job duties with integrity and professionalism, and have done so with respect to this matter and all other collections in which I have participated.”

Laurenzi has hired Boyd Johnson, a prominent lawyer, to represent him.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/29/sp...r=1&ref=sports

This story gets more and more interesting....

[Omar]

How could it be standard protocol to take the samples to your house?

[Fritz]

If the CDT offices are closed, FedEx flights have departed and dropping it off at Kinko's with a bunch of jackasses that make $8/hr is the only other option, it seems reasonable.

People take work property home with them all the time. It would just sit in a lunchbox on its way to the lab anyway.

[TheMendozaLine]

They should develop a PED taste test. That way, instead of having to wait for the next available FedEx flight, the drug test collector could just gargle Braun's piss on site and tell us if he's juiced or not.

[Mainge]