The courier did not immediately head to a FedEx Office after collecting Braun’s sample following an early-October game because it was late on a Saturday night and he figured the store would be closed. Braun (or, rather, his lawyers) argued in January that the courier’s action was against policy, but the MLB-MLBPA joint drug agreement states that “specimens cannot be placed in a FedEx Drop Box” and the five FedEx Office locations closest to Miller Park are all closed before 9 p.m. on Saturdays. In fact, the location closest to Miller Park — just 3.28 miles away — isn’t open at all on Saturdays.

Also, none of the FedEx Office locations in the Milwaukee area ship items out on Sundays. So instead of giving the sealed cup of urine to a FedEx Office employee at some point Sunday and hoping for proper handling, the courier followed the terms of the MLB-MLBPA joint drug agreement (see pages 37-39) by storing Braun’s urine sample in a secure refrigerator at his residence until Monday morning, when FedEx could finally get the shipment to the appropriate testing lab in Montreal.

The MLB-MLBPA joint drug agreement fully allows for temporary storage by couriers — people who are trained and paid to handle drug test samples, and do so as a profession — as long as the specimen can be “appropriately safeguarded,” kept in a “cool and secure location,” with “chain of custody intact.” A refrigerator in the private residence of a trained doping officer would seem to fit those criteria.

I was just trying to dig deeper on the details we do have.

But we can’t honestly believe that it’s as simple as you lay it out above, right? Are we really going to assume that the media members who say “hey wait the chain of custody was fine” are using an argument that wasn’t at least mentioned in the hearings?*

* And that’s the main point. We don’t know enough right now to judge. But it seems like too many are ignoring due process now.

I was responding to an idiotic post with sarcasm (because such posts don’t deserve legitimate responses).

http://instantrimshot.com/

Clin Chim Acta. 1976 Sep 20;71(3):439-43.

In order to investigate the stability of testosterone (T) and androstenedione (Adione) in blood and plasma samples following study was undertaken. 1. Pooled blood samples were left unseparated at room temperature for varying time periods of up to 3 days before being centrifuged. Subsequent plasma T and Adione values measured by radioimmunoassay showed only small, insignificant variations. 2. Plasma, initially separated from the pooled blood sample, was left at room temperature for up to 24 h. There was no significant change in the levels of T and Adione measured over this period. There was also good correlation between steroid concentrations measured in blood and plasma. 3. T and Adione were measured in a pooled plasma sample after repeated freezing and thawing of the sample. All T values were well within the intraassay coefficient of variation; all Adione values were within the precision limits of the assay, although there was a considerable spread in individual values. It is concluded that the various handling procedures of blood or plasma have no significant effect on T and Adione levels.

The problem with this is that no one (not even the great Passan) knows what exactly went on or the arguments that Braun’s team used during the hearing. I read that the arbitrator has 30 days to issue a written summary. Hopefully that will shed some light.

And the other thing is that, while not every story or angle reported is true, you totally dismissed the POSSIBILITY that it has some truth to it. That may not have been your intention, but it is how it reads.