Steroid cheat, but more importantly compulsive liar Ryan Braun has led the Milwaukee Brewers to the best record in baseball. You probably aren’t aware of this because the Brewers are not any of the following:
Lebron James, Johnny Manziel, Tim Tebow, any of the New York or Boston teams, North Carolina, Duke, the SEC or Notre Dame.
Unless you’re one of the players or teams on that short list above, your coverage on ESPN will be minimal. And who can talk about the ultra-hot April the Milwaukee Brewers have had when OMG THE CUBS MADE A 400 WRIGLEY FIELD CAKE!!!! AND IT GOT THROWN AWAY!!!!
Because the cake narrative is the most important to happen in the Upper Midwest in the history of forever.
In Cubdom, or Cubdumb as it was this past week, the national media are more concerned with dumpster cakes and birthday parties for buildings than they are with actually taking Cubs President Theo Epstein to task. He gets away with moving the goal posts on his rebuilding plan every year and this drives Brewers and White Sox fans nuts. The Cubs are actually more laughable than loathable, but Sox and Brew Crew backers resent the Cubbies for being an international brand while the Sox are Brewers are relegated to small market status.
It’s understandable why Brewers fans hate the Cubs when you consider that Miller Park becomes Wrigley Field North every time we have an I-94 series in Brew town. That would annoy me too. What I don’t understand is the Ryan Braun redemption. Braun gave his tested-on-focus-groups-sounding public apologies, and apparently that’s enough.
Yes, Ryan Braun is leading the Brewers in all the major offensive categories thus far, and that’s a part of their MLB best 18-7 record, but let’s not forget who Ryan Braun really is.
As Dan Bernstein of CBS Chicago put it:
This guy lied and lied and lied to these fans, and they love him for it. If they’re saying, “We still adore him because he’s ours,” then the rest of us are entitled to our opinion about anybody who could possibly think that.
Of all of baseball’s ‘roiders, Braun is the only one who went out of his way to impugn the collector of the first evidence – the positive urine sample – both professionally and personally, saying, “There were a lot of things we learned about the collector” without ever mentioning a single one of them. Privately, he went so far as to initiate a whisper campaign in the locker room that Dino Laurenzi planted the offending substance because he was an anti-Semite or even worse, a Cubs fan. Sammy Sosa pretended he couldn’t understand English, Mark McGwire was conveniently foggy and Rafael Palmeiro pointed his finger at congressmen and lied through his teeth, but none of them tried to ruin the life of a specific, innocent person to protect themselves.
That’s Lance Armstrong stuff, from the major league PED-fraud playbook. Braun is closer to that level – not just a cheater who got busted, but a genuinely bad guy.
That’s who Ryan Braun is. He’s not sorry, just sorry that he got caught. Yet Brewers fans are…angry at themselves for believing in him when he was ruled “innocent?” Angry at themselves for being duped and then let-down again? Just have a short term memory?
Too many Brewers fans have the opinion of Amy Williams, or “Front Row Amy,” their most famous supporter. And Front Row Amy is famous for…..her baseball intellectualism and complex analysis of the game that would put even the most brilliant Bill Jamesites and devoted sabermetricians to shame. That’s how much of a baseball genius Front Row Amy is.
Just kidding, Front Row Amy is actually baseball Katherine Webb.
Well, that’s an insult to Webb actually, as AJ McCarron’s fiance actually has a lot more substance and legitimate reason for being a celebrity than Williams. You may think it low hanging fruit to rip Front Row Amy, but
1.) her internet fame has reached a disturbingly high level, and those seeking to be public figures are always fair game for criticism and
2.) her views on Ryan Braun are frighteningly indicative of the Brewers fan base at large.
I guess they’re just cool with Ryan Braun. Because we live in the “United States of Amnesia” as Gore Vidal calls it. Unless the sin you committed is related to bigotry and/or racism, you will likely get another chance. Paula Deen and Michael Richards are never coming back, but Martha Stewart, Jim Cramer and Kelvin Sampson did.
If/when Ryan Braun gets caught cheating again, and then does nothing to show actual remorse for it, people will still forgive and forget.
Paul M. Banks owns The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. He’s also a frequent guest on national talk radio. Banks is a former contributor to NBC Chicago and the Washington Times, who’s been featured on the History Channel. President Obama follows him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)