Braun, leave him alone already

Ryan Braun who was accused of using performance enhancing drugs earlier this year is still getting booed from fans. Although Braun's test was later considered invalid, and in fact it was an invasion of privacy for the information to have been made public in the first place, the MLB fans won't stop riding his ass about it.

On March 17th in Tempe Arizona, since his name was announced at the begging of the game, Ryan Braun (last year's league MVP) was rained down with boos from the inconsiderate, unjust Angels fans. Although the fans may have been acting like complete assholes at least the Angels players understood the situation and responded like responsible individuals, outfielder Vernon Wells told the press,

In this game — or in life — if anybody can find a negative, they love to take advantage of it -- In this society, we've gotten to the point where the negative is glorified. It's unfortunate. -- Any time your name is associated with it, you'll hear about it, -- You know that coming in. When something like that goes public, you'll hear about it the rest of your career. I think he'll be one of those guys that can deal with it.

The unfortunate thing about being accused of cheating in the MLB is that, whether guilty or not, the allegations will follow you for the rest of your career and could prevent you from attaining goals like the hall of fame. Why is this?

Because of the extreme reliance on myth in the MLB. The fact is that as far as we known Ryan Braun has never used steroids, there is no information that says otherwise, and therefore labeling him as a cheater and treating him as thus falls into the category of myth.

Braun told ESPN that, "don’t think anything of it. That’s a story for you guys.”, although he is currently being a good sport about the situation, will the boos and jeers ever end? And can a player put up with something like that for their entire career without it effecting their game? So far this spring pre-season Braun
is 1 for 15 at the plate, lets hope he's not going to pull a Tiger Woods on us.

Baseball and Cheating -- What's the real issue

No matter how you slice it, cheating plays a big role in major league baseball.  It is a conversation that MLB enthusiasts will happily argue over for eternity.  Not only is cheating prevalent in today's baseball society ( almost exclusively concerning PEDs) it has been around since the creation of the game. In the "Cambridge Companion to Baseball", David and Daniel Luban, discuss the great importance cheating has in baseball; their article opens up with a quote from Rogers Hornsby, "I've been in pro baseball since 1914 and I've cheated, or watched someone on my team cheat, in practically every game. You've got to cheat." In the past however cheating has not been as big of an issue with fans, of baseball, as is their concern with PEDs today.

Why is this?

Well as we discussed in class it must either be a moral or a records issue, meaning are the fans concerned with the morality behind PEDS or are they concerned with the possible advantage the drugs could have to breaking records, in particular the HR records.
If it is a concern of morality, we could construct a syllogism to attempt to prove it. (I found a very useful one in a paper by Sharon Ryan) it reads:

(1) Using PEDs is harmful to athletes and athletes are under enormous pressure to take
PEDs.
(2) All things that are harmful to athletes and that place athletes under enormous pressure
to do are morally wrong and that is why (it is such a big deal in baseball).
________________________________________________
(3) Using PEDs is morally wrong and that is why (it is such a big issue in baseball).

The problem with this argument is that premise one cannot be considered valid. There is not enough information to prove the harm that PEDs cause, in addition if PEDs were made legal and regulated, doctors could find a dosage that would actually be healthy for athletes.

So if morality is not the reason behind the fans outrage at PEDs, it must then be a concern for the value of MLB records. Fans must realize that this is what is important to them and need to stop blaming they're outrage at players on issues of morality.

Recently we have had two cases of PED use in the MLB, the Ryan Braun case.

And more recently the Erick Hortada case.

The main difference between the two being that Braun's allegations were eventually over turned. Although this may seem significant, will the fans actually look at the two players differently? Even though Braun's case was overturned he will still be labeled as a "cheater", and thrust into the same category as Horta

da. Are these two "cheaters" morally bad people? And will the fans ever be able to accept them if they break records or are in contention for the hall of fame, or will they simply be remembered as immoral cheaters?

Only time and myth will tell.