Last offseason, baseball star Ryan Braun was reported to have tested positive for grossly elevated levels of testosterone. The results made no sense to me, because Braun’s performance numbers for 2011, though slightly elevated, were right in line with his career numbers.
This season Braun is putting up even better numbers. He has produced for the Brewers 194 bases on only 174 outs made. Those are Stan Musial numbers. Those are GOAT numbers. Those are the numbers Braun is producing in a season where he must be the must scrutinized and drug tested player in baseball.
Bill James, the father of Sabermetrics, has long argued that the effect PEDs have on performance numbers is minimal at worst. He may be right. If he is not right, then the whole Braun Scandal makes no sense.
I suppose there is a third potential explanation. Maybe PEDs do not enhance performance, but they do expedite injury recovery. That would make sense in the Braun case, because Braun was battling nagging injuries all last season, and he may have taken testosterone to insure his health during the Brewers second postseason in over a quarter century.
But if that is the case, why should anyone be against PEDs? If PEDs don’t “EP” but rather allow players to recover quicker from injury, shouldn’t they merely be considered one more technological advancement? I mean, players of today are able to recover from ACLs that would have ended many careers yesterday.
Food for thought, I guess. But one thing is clear — the Federal Government should get the hell out of the sports prosecution business. What a glory-seeking bunch of morons those federal prosecutors are anyway.
