The Ryan Braun Rule

It is wonderful to note that Major League Baseball, WADA, signatories and affiliates, through wanton negligence and disregard of due process, destroyed all credibility of the anti-doping process and invited an avalanche of disdain and speculation.  This incredible blunder was based upon an incredible lack of interest in ensuring athlete rights to fair process by ensuring that the urine and blood samples they contributed through contractual attrition be assured unequivocal sample integrity from sample collection to final laboratory testing.

This abuse of process is indicative of the "sloppy" practice so often engaged in by the anti-doping crusade.  The samples were collected from the athlete under a rigorous process, witnessed, signed, sealed.  At this point there seems to be nothing that is legally contestable.  But once the sample passes from the direct supervision of the athlete into the maw of the transportation process, then a whole gamut of legally contestable problems emerge based directly upon the lack of foresight of the policy makers.  In the Ryan Braun case the issues centered upon a whole cascade of problems, delay in shipping the samples, lack of security of the sample to prevent possible sabotage, malfeasance, urine substitution; a lack of a controlled environment for the sample to prevent degradation, and a wanton disregard for accountability, responsibility, and liability.

Not surprisingly under appeal of these clear breaches of a convincing chain-of-custody, and because Major League Baseball could not convincingly prove the lack of an opportunistic malfeasance or a premeditated criminal intent to tamper with the sample, in spite of witness assurances to the contrary, Shyman Das was forced to overturn a fifty game suspension that was based upon the conclusion that Ryan Braun was above threshold for a carbon 13 synthetic based testosterone; which indicated an illegal use of a prohibited  performance enhancing substance.  It is important to note that the laboratory results generated by the WADA accredited laboratory at Montreal, Canada was never contested by the Ryan Braun defense team.  Indeed, if done correctly the carbon isotope ratio test may be incontestable.  Thus, in the popular press, the overturn of the Ryan Braun fifty game suspension became known as a legal "loophole" tactic.

He who does not agree with the Albanian Party of Labor on any given issue will get, a spit in the face, a sock on the jaw, and if necessary, a bullet in the head.

Mehmet Shehu

A loud and resounding peal of disapproval of Shyman Das emerged from Major League Baseball.  Without exception, anti-doping experts and sport pundits condemned Shyman Das, the arbitrator who cast the deciding vote to overturn the Braun suspension as a villain, a man who allowed a clearly guilty criminal athlete to escape rightful punishment; and a man who set a bad precedent that would prompt other criminal athletes use the same chain-of-custody "loophole" defense. According to New York Times unnamed sources Shyman Das was terminated from his arbitrator position for overturning the Ryan Braun suspension and for "other reasons." [See Velo Vortmax: Ryan Braun Terminated for a short summary of this fiasco.]  Shyman Das was essentially terminated from his position for merely pointing out to Major League Baseball that their chain-of-custody policy was legally indefensible because it was laced with ambiguity and could not prove conclusively sample integrity.

The Ryan Braun Rule

Reports have emerged [Fox Sports Radio] that Major League Baseball has instituted a new chain-of-custody policy to ensure that a Ryan Braun loophole never happens again.  There seems to have been an effort to eliminate the "ambiguity" that caused the problem in the first place; the storage of the sample unattended and unprotected on a courier's desk, for a weekend if necessary, if the shipping office was closed for business, or for concerns of inconvenience, traffic, or ancillary reasons of equal dubious quality.  These incoherent reasons have been clarified to include specific instances where normal chain-of-custody procedures may be circumvented through other incoherent excuses, which cannot be contested in future by the athlete. It would appear that the Ryan Braun rule is merely a faint to create loopholes for chaperons and couriers rather than to protect athletes rights to due process.  Rather than clarifying the process Major League Baseball seems to have added more confusion to the policy than ever and they may have opened the door for future legal actions; not in arbitration, but in a Federal court, where their idiotic policy can be contested by legal arguments.

The Floyd Landis Rule

When a cyclist gives a sample, from that point until testing, the sample becomes property of the UCI, according to a ruling by the Floyd Landis arbitration panel.  Floyd Landis claimed that since his samples had been sent to the WADA accredited laboratory at UCLA, and since he was under the jurisdiction of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, who managed doping arbitration for USA cycling who issued Floyd Landis his cycling license, that any further testing of his samples that corresponded to the 2006 Tour de France other than the Stage 17 sample, the alternate "B" tests, should be done at UCLA and not at Paris.  The arbitration panel ruled that the samples were the property of the UCI and that the UCI could therefore do anything they wanted with regard to their own property, including sending the samples from UCLA to Paris for additional testing.  Thus, the UCI can do anything it desires with the sample including transporting the sample back and forth between WADA accredited laboratories, over thousands of kilometers, until they get the desired result.  Iban Mayo can testify to that fact, his "A" sample was tested by the Paris, France WADA accredited laboratory, who curiously had no time to do the "B" sample confirmation test.  Although Iban Mayo tested positive for rEPO in Paris, the WADA accredited laboratory in Australia where the sample was farmed out to determined the "B" sample "inconclusive."  Nevertheless, the UCI insisted that the Mayo "B" sample be tested again at Paris to confirm the original "A" sample conclusion that rEPO existed in Iban Mayo's urine sample.  The desired result suited the UCI, and the arbitrators confirmed that all was appropriate, above board and incontestable, even though the samples had passed through dozens of hands and had traveled thousands of kilometers...

If it worked for cyclists, why not for baseball too?