Yeah, I know Major League Baseball suspended Milwaukee Brewers slugger Ryan Braun for 65 games over his use of performance enhancing drugs and the Biogenesis involvement. And yes, I know that he would forfeit $3.8 million of his remaining salary this season.
I still think Braun got off easy.
Follow me for a minute.
Remember what Braun did when he was caught the first time last season? He essentially trashed the poor fellow who collected his sample, which led to two things: Braun getting off on a technicality because of how the sample was collected and the urine collector losing his job.
Braun’s Brewers are 16 games below .500. What player would want to play out the string knowing how bad his team sucks? I mean, what’s the point of showing up other than to collect a paycheck.
And speaking of paychecks, Braun won’t be missing $3.8 mil. In fact, Braun’s contract will increase to $10 mil next season, and $12 million in 2015. So basically his $3.8 mil loss is like $10 to me and you.
And most of all, he will still collect on his guaranteed contract. What says “I got over” more than collecting on $105 mil on the extension he signed in 2011
MLB commissioner Bud Selig should not be patting himself on the back over the Braun “suspension”. I’ve always said if Selig wanted to be serious about eliminating PEDs from the sport he’d do two things: make the suspensions longer and terminate the contracts. That way, at least players would think twice about ‘roiding up.
It will be interesting to see what Selig and MLB will do about Alex Rodriguez. Given what happened to Braun, I’d be shocked if Selig dropped the hammer on A-Fraud.
Categories: MLB
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