Everyone has watched enough crime and courtroom television shows to know about plea bargains. But the plea bargain we saw in Major League Baseball this week was not the usual fare for “Law and Order.”
Like other steroids cheats, Ryan Braun may not make the Hall of Fame, but he will have a place in history as the first player to accept a suspension by way of a plea agreement.
Braun, the Milwaukee Brewers’ star slugger, was suspended July 22 for the rest of the season, translating to a loss of 65 games on the schedule and $3.25 million in salary.
Braun, 29 years old, is the first player to be “convicted” as a result of baseball’s Biogenesis investigation. His and Alex Rodriguez are the biggest names of the approximately two dozen that have been mentioned in news media reports of the alleged distribution of performance-enhancing substances by a now closed anti-aging clinic in South Florida.
The procedure that was followed matched stories that have been depicted on television for decades.
In a meeting with MLB investigators last month, a baseball executive said, Braun did not answer questions but listened closely to the evidence against him. There apparently was nothing circumstantial about the evidence baseball had against him.
Nor was there anything new about the ordeal for the 2011 National League most valuable player. Late in 2011 he was suspended for 50 games for testing positive for a banned substance. But he appealed the suspension and beat it, successfully challenging the way the collection procedure was conducted.
Baseball’s testing system was fatally flawed, said Braun, who turned out to be the one who was fatally flawed.
Baseball officials from the commissioner down were outraged at the grievance decision of the impartial arbitrator, Shyam Das, and fired him as they had the right to do under the clubs’ agreement with the union. Braun, however, would give the clubs and the commissioner their chance for revenge.
Convinced he could not beat the rap this time, Braun returned for a second meeting with MLB personnel, accompanied by his lawyer, Terry Prince, general counsel of Creative Artists Agency, the player’s agent. It was at that meeting, an official said, that the plea bargain was discussed and hammered out.
If baseball had such a strong case against Braun, why agree to anything less than it wanted as a penalty for Braun?
“They thought it was important to get a player out there,” an official said. In other words, MLB hoped that a Braun guilty plea would induce other suspects to be willing to negotiate plea agreements, thus avoiding appeals and possible losses in the grievance procedure.
It’s not unlike a district attorney having, say, half a dozen suspects in the same case and trying to induce one to accept a plea bargain in the hopes that the other suspects will fall into line.
In baseball’s case, both sides have learned over the years that nothing that goes before an arbitrator has a predictable outcome.
Neither Braun’s lawyer nor his agent returned telephone calls seeking comment, but a lawyer not connected to Braun said he accepted the 65-game suspension because “he realized they had him for 50 games and accepted the additional 15 games for previous stuff he had done.”
The lawyer said the “previous stuff” wasn’t the 2011 positive test but what occurred during Braun’s appeal of that test. In effect, it was payback for the appeal.
A player can’t be disciplined for filing a grievance and challenging a test result, but in this instance, during plea negotiations, the commissioner’s representatives could have said to Braun, “You don’t have to accept the additional 15 games, but if you don’t, we’ll lay out a case for a second suspension, which could be 100 games because it would be his second.
There was also speculation that an extra suspension could be added if Braun lied to investigators. However, an official said, “He didn’t tell us anything so he didn’t lie.”
In the wild-eye reporting on the Biogenesis investigation, some outlets reported that players could be suspended for 100 games. However, an official said, “We never said that.”
“We had a principled view of what had to happen,” the official said of the Braun case. “Fifty games plus 15 for the other stuff.”
The union was apparently also interested in moving beyond the Biogenesis cases. Usually prepared to fight suspensions of any kind, the union seems to have adopted a new policy, pushed by the players’ desire to shed the steroids discussions.
In a statement, Michael Weiner, the union chief, said, “I am deeply gratified to see Ryan taking this bold step. It vindicates the rights of all players under the Joint Drug Program. It is good for the game that Ryan will return soon to continue his great work both on and off the field.”
Speaking generally of the Biogenesis cases and specifically of Braun, a union lawyer added, “We’d like to see all the cases worked out and not have to litigate. We thought 65 was a fair settlement.”
Some news media outlets and fans are not prepared to treat Braun kindly. Some want him stripped of his 2011 m.v.p. award, but that won’t happen. The Baseball Writers Association of America, which voted Braun the award, has previously rejected similar calls with other award winners.
In an editorial this week, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel called for the Brewers to get rid of Braun, presumably paying him the $127 million left in his contract.
“Ryan Braun has to go,” the editorial began, wasting no words. “The Brewers should end their relationship with Braun,” the editorial added. “Only then can the organization ‘move on’”
But that won’t happen either.
Now that Braun has begun serving his suspension, the focus falls on Alex Rodriguez and what he and the commissioner’s office will do. The New York Yankees’ star has given no indication of going quietly if he is guilty of performance-enhancing wrong doing, but then neither had Braun before he negotiated his plea bargain.