For starters, I'd really just like to say that my favorite thing to do as a writer/mod is to write hilarious captions for whatever photo I decide to use in my articles or news posts. Oh man, I shudder to think what I'll write when I get to do Post Game Recaps. However, my second favorite thing to do are human interest pieces and analysis. For those who don't know me, hi I'mGivingYouARaise. Seriously though, one of my primary hobbies is human reaction and studying it from almost every angle. A little background info about myself just to help explain my fascination with this, In high school I was not the bully, the popular kid, the jock, but rather the lovable nerd. Now, lovable nerd is not something you hear often because a huge portion of nerds are not lovable and they get bullied or picked on. The reason I was so lovable because I study people and what their reactions are to things, to certain words and motions and questions they might ask. I'm also amazing adept at annoying people for the same reason. Seriously, my closest friends who I've known for 20+ years can tell you stories. Needless to say, I just have a fascination with human reaction.
My apologies for boring you with stories of myself, cause that's not what this is about. No, what this is about is the reactions to come out of the Ryan Braun situation. I really even hate to call it a situation at this point due to the fact that I do believe in due process, but because of certain circumstances it can really only be described as a situation. In case you haven't been following Pinstripe Alley, or Major League Baseball for the past four to five days, Ryan Braun avoided his suspension due to a "chain of command" mishandling of his urine. I chose the word mishandling for a reason, because Ryan Braun's golden snow-cone juice is the least of what has been mishandled here, and it is why this whole thing has become a situation to begin with. It truly seems like Major League Baseball is being mishandled, and this case is just the latest evidence of it.
After the jump, it's a classic IGYARticle rant...
If you actually read the first paragraph before the jump, I was talking about how my hobby is to study human reaction. The reason why I love human reaction so much is because it is in this that you can really see what type of person someone is, whether they realize it or not. It's no different with sports and studying players & fans, and less just say that steroid use has easily been one of the best ways to gauge human reaction in fans. The Ryan Braun situation has offered fascinating views into the reactions of both fans, sportswriters, and MLB itself. After the confidential info leaked about Braun's positive test, reactions ranged from "he's innocent" to "take away the cheaters MVP trophy" to my own personal reaction "wait, this was suppose to be confidential?" As I've mentioned in the past regarding things like Jeter's contract negotiations, confidentiality is there for a reason. It's to protect the person involved, the heads of the company, and the very business itself from the dangers of erratic human reaction. As we've clearly seen with the Ryan Braun situation, all three now look bad because of a lack of confidentiality.
Ryan Braun is a fantastic hitter and an all around fun player to watch. The Milwaukee Brewers wanted him to be the face of the franchise, their superstar, the player that Brewers fans buy jerseys of. So far, it's pretty well deserved considering his skill level. However, all of that is now tainted. I won't say it will be forever, because anything is possible, but for the foreseeable future the question of PED usage will loom over his head much like Bernie Brewer's place in Left Field at Miller Park. Mind you, he won his appeal of the charges but he won due to the mishandling of his urine. It's still a legitimate reason due to reasons that have been stated before about due process, but it's definitely not as concrete as it being announced that the tests came back clean or something to that effect. However, the interesting thing in all of this is that it really doesn't matter. He could had clean test results and some people would still not be convinced. Again, human reaction. The fact of the matter is that this whole thing could have been avoided with just a shred of confidentiality. None of this is anything we needed to know until all the results were in. But now we know everything and here we are with another player to possibly be thrown under the bus because Major League Baseball can't seem to keep its bunting mouth shut when this kind of private matter comes up.
Make no mistake about it, I believe the leaks of information are more important than the actual information itself, especially regarding Ryan Braun. From beginning to end, this whole ordeal has just been one long, drawn out, moronic clusterbunt and MLB is to bunting blame for it. When a company lets this kind of confidential information out, it shows a lack of structure and the company is to blame for it. Not the reporter whose job it is to report on information like this, not the player whose information is suppose to be kept private, but the company. I said how this has been one huge, stupid, elongated Mr. Fantastic clusterbunt from beginning to end, because in the end MLB gave what I consider the WORST. POSSIBLE. RESPONSE. to the ruling, and this was before it came out as to why Braun won his appeal. He won his appeal because his lawyers found a "technicality" regarding how his urine was handled, as in not in the proper, law abiding way. But MLB never mentioned that. All they did was come off like pompous mishandling morons who do not seem to understand how due process works, how confidentiality works, or how public relations works.
As you can clearly see my reaction to the Ryan Braun situation up above is not one of great joy. I'm happy that he won't be suspended for fifty games, but I'm appalled at how this whole thing was handled and how steroid use in general is handled by the MLB. We've had plenty of talk and debate about steroid usage here on Pinstripe Alley, about whether or not players should be let in to the Hall of Fame if they got caught, and we could continue discussing that forever. My own personal belief is that they should be let in because there's not a shred of doubt in my mind that MLB knew about these players using it and chose to look the other away because after the strike in 94' they needed to get fans back to the games and you know how the fans love the dingers! Essentially, they made their bed and now the have to sleep in it. Again, it all goes back to confidentiality and the Ryan Braun situation is just another example to show how poorly MLB is at it. If this were the NCC-1701-D, Worf would never allow this huge a gap in Enterprise security, and if it did happen those responsible would be hunted down.
In closing, the reactions to this bunting debacle are still coming out because of everything involved with the details. In all honesty, this wasn't even my originally planned IGYARticle for today, but even I felt the need to discuss it because of what I think the main problem is in all of this. I just find it astounding how things could have been handled this poorly and how Ryan Braun will have to suffer for it because of the morons running the ship. Does he deserve it? That's not the point! The point is that we should have never known about it, at the very least until all the facts were in. Instead now we get constant speculation, blame, immediate guilty verdicts, and articles like this one. Ryan Braun will now have to spend a good portion of his future career trying to defend himself and further prove his innocence because MLB and the parties involved failed to prove he was guilty without a shadow of doubt because of poor execution and mishandling. Did Ryan Braun do it? Again, that's not the point. We don't know and as of now we will never know as MLB failed to unanimously prove he did. MLB whining like children when they didn't get the result they wanted did nothing to help matters either. We should have never known about this in the first place, as everything under discussion is suppose to be a private matter. What this whole clusterbunt has shown me is what I've continued to suspect for a long time. MLB is run less like the USS Enterprise-D and more like the USS Voyager, which I can tell you as a Star Trek fan is definitely not a good thing. For now though, I will continue to study the reaction to this case, as well as the next time MLB screws up in this fashion. I'm pretty confident that it will happen again.