Before I start this Ryan Braun apology post-mortem, I want to say openly I was content to let him take his suspension, money, and accolades—all of it—as long as he didn’t bring the issue up again.
So he cheated and lied about it; what else is new?
It’s a part of the competitive psyche to find an edge; many players are narcissists; the job gives you a small window of time to make a huge gob of cash… I won’t lie, it makes sense to me why players do it.
Until Major League Baseball truly comes up with a process that makes it cost ineffective for players to cheat, they’re going to keep at it, even superstars who seemingly don’t need to cheat to cash in.
That’s not to say I don’t understand the argument that players are role models –whether they like it or not — and as such they’re expected to be the moral and ethical paragons society wants.
I don’t agree with this misappropriation of values, expecting the high profile to be held to higher standards than the rest of us, but I recognize this is the reality we live in.
However, when a player like Braun makes a conscious decision to stray from the path of morality for personal gain, I don’t want them coming back to me with soul bearing and contrition, as if they’ve suddenly snapped back to the reality they previously rejected.
You duped me and you profited from it; shame on you for doing it; shame on me for expecting you, an athlete, to be virtuous. Can’t we just leave it at that?
This is why I don’t feel very forgiving of Braun. If anything, I’ve lost more respect for him through this apology process than over his actual cheating.
Tell me you did it for the money, tell me you did for the fame, just don’t tell me that all of the lies, speeches and theatricality were the product of misdirected anger, self-righteous delusion, and a nagging injury.
What was this nagging injury? Insanity?
The lengths Braun went to cover up his lie are mind blowing. Swearing on his life, claiming that his vindication in 2012 is shared with all who’ve ever been wrongly accused, roping in his family, friends, and teammates in on his lie, and destroying Dino Laurenzi, Jr. It’s a level of flim-flam that seems below even PED public enemy No. 1: Alex Rodriguez.
Just own it, Braun. It wasn’t a lapse in judgment. It wasn’t the wrong path. It was a calculated, profitable act of unrepentant cheating that helped get you where you wanted to go, and you were thrilled that it got you there. Then, when MLB’s bloodhounds came sniffing, you thought you could have the best of both worlds–performance enhancement and a golden reputation–so you lied previously, to keep it.
That’s why you must believe that the only reason you’re making this public announcement is because you have to. Not because the MLB is making you, or because you really feel bad about the people you suckered, but for the same reason you cheated in the first place: because it’s in your best interest.
Isn’t this why you took PED’s in the first place? Why you went to such great lengths to delude yourself into believing it was okay. Why you felt “personally attacked” even though you knew you were committing a crime that has impartial consequences. Why you made beating the rap on a technicality sound so benevolent.
Why you used the pronoun “I” 77 times in your apology.
To be clear, I’m not mad at Braun for cheating. I know why he did it. I’m mad at him for acting like he doesn’t know why he did it.