Previewing today’s Ryan Braun idiocy

The Ryan Braun/Biogenesis report from Yahoo! came out in the evening, so most big columnists and opinion-spinners haven’t yet had a crack at it beyond their initial “oh man, Ryan Braun!” reactions.  But rest assured they’ll be out in full force today.

This is Ryan Braun after all. And the anger at him from the anti-PED zealots is extreme. In some cases maybe even more extreme than it is against A-Rod because Braun is seen as having slipped the hangman’s noose last year when he successfully appealed his suspension for testing positive for testosterone. The fact that he did so because the testers failed to follow the rules is irrelevant to them because that’s part of the due process owed the accused in baseball’s drug testing program and these folks don’t much care for due process.

And so it is with Braun Scandal 2.0.  His name showed up in Biogenesis records. Never mind that it, unlike the other players, wasn’t linked to any PEDs. Never mind that his official statement — that his lawyers used Dr. Bosch as a consultant during his appeal last year — is eminently plausible and worth exploring before we rush to judgment.  As per last year’s example we’re apparently allowed to pick and choose the facts when our outrage is at stake, so him merely being in those records are all that will likely matter when the Outrage Industrial Complex gets going.

Among the things I fully expect from the Outrage Industrial Complex later today:

• People who trust Bosch’s records as 100% accurate insofar as they implicate ballplayers will claim that he is far too sloppy and untrustworthy to have served as a consultant for Braun;
• People who have never litigated nor consulted a day in their lives will claim that it makes no sense for Braun’s litigators to have used Bosch as a consultant (Morosi is already on this one). The Outrage Industrial Complex LOVES to act like they know the first thing about the law in these kinds of cases;
• People unconcerned with the actual facts of the situation will be quick to talk about how this is “poetic justice” and or “ironic” — and they will inevitably misuse the word “ironic” in doing so — for Braun to be ensnared again. And of course there will be no desire whatsoever by these people to actually let the investigation proceed beyond the 12 hour mark before deciding such things.

I’m sure there will be other examples. The news business comes at you fast. There’s no time for actually waiting for information to come out and/or be authenticated before drawing conclusions from it. That’s amateurish and naive.  Or at least that’s what people tell me.

Here’s hoping none of them never find themselves under fire for something and face the same sort of treatment to which they subject others.