Of Ryan Braun eluding punishment via a loophole that’s left one urine guardian aggrieved, ESPN.com’s Buster Olney claims the reigning NL MVP’s fellow players are pissed (“‘you need to write an article about this,’ a player said a week ago. “‘This is wrong”), while the New York Times’ Tyler Kepner focuses on the awkwardness of “the pillar of the commissioner’s hometown team” being widely presumed guilty.
Bud Selig declined an interview request Wednesday, but this must be a painful blow to him. It would be bad publicity for any star to be tangled in such a mess, but Braun has particular resonance to Selig.
On Sept. 23, Braun launched an eighth-inning home run at Miller Park to put the Brewers ahead for good on the night they clinched first place for the first time since 1982. Selig, who took the franchise to Milwaukee and still lives there, was moved by Braun’s home run and the civic celebration of it.
A few days later, he compared it to the home run hit by Hank Aaron, a game-ending blast that clinched the 1957 pennant for Selig’s beloved Milwaukee Braves. In a serendipitous bit of symmetry, Aaron’s home run came 54 years to the day before Braun’s. Then Braun hit .405 in the playoffs.
It all seemed to punctuate Braun’s status as a worthy heir to Aaron, a beacon to a new generation of Milwaukee baseball fans. Now there is no such clarity, just a story that only grows murkier, and never should have gotten out in the first place.