Monday, February 27, 2012

I'm Having Second Thoughts About Ryan Braun

Ryan Braun, a major league baseball player for the Milwaukee Brewers was accused of using n illegal substance.
Ryan Braun immediately said he was innocent and said he would never put a banned substance in his body and I believed him.
But what they appealed was not about the banned substance, testosterone, but the way the urine sample was handled.  In doing so, they had Braun and his legal team attack the person who collected the urine.  And while doing so, they trashed the reputation of this man.
From jsonline: Around the country, he's now known as the collector, the man at the center of Milwaukee Brewers slugger Ryan Braun's drug testing controversy.
But in his hometown, Dino I. Laurenzi, Jr., is known as a meticulous sports trainer and respected health care professional who follows the rules.
"He is as solid and standup an individual as I've met," Pleasant Prairie Village Administrator Mike Pollocoff said Monday. "The world would be a lot better of a place with more guys like Dino around."
Along with his 22-year-old son Anthony, who acted as a "chaperon" for the athlete, Laurenzi gathered Braun's urine sample at Miller Park, Oct. 1.
Braun, who won an appeal over a positive drug test and avoided a 50-game suspension, blamed a "fatally flawed" process. On Friday, Braun detailed the chain of custody that began at Miller Park and ended with Laurenzi delivering the sample some 44 hours later to a FedEx facility.
"There were a lot of things that we learned about the collector, about the collection process, about the way that the entire thing worked that made us very concerned and very suspicious about what could have actually happened," Braun said.
Pollocoff said he was disappointed with Braun.
"The innuendo for me, that just put Ryan Braun in a different light," Pollocoff said. "I hate to say that."
"Dino would be the first to say that what happens with someone's medical records should be confidential," Pollocoff added.
Laurenzi, the son of a retired Kenosha pharmacist, has strong roots in the area. He lives in Pleasant Prairie in a modern development of winding streets and two-story homes.  http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/braun-sample-collector-known-for-integrity-in-hometown-1e4c0b4-140641683.html
I highly doubt that anything happened to Braun's urine sample during the chain of command and the proper chain of command was used, especially since the urine sample was collected in the evening, on a Saturday, after Fed Ex stopped picking up packages for the day.
So, instead of dealing with the banned substance in Braun's body, Braun, instead chose to trash a person's integrity and reputation.
I think Braun needs to man up and apologize to Mr. Laurenzi and if necessary, take the 50 day suspension. 
But I lost of respect for Ryan Braun- I think he cheated the system and an arbitrator bought his story.

No comments:

Post a Comment