Humbled Braun Accepts MVP

Ryan Braun accepted his MVP award Saturday night, becoming the first player to do so under the cloud of a failed steroid test.

“I also wanted to take a moment to thank the players association for supporting me throughout my career and especially for supporting me through everything I went through over the last couple of months. Thank you, guys.

“Sometimes in life we all deal with challenges we never expected to endure. We have an opportunity to look as those challenges and view them either as obstacles or opportunities. I’ve chosen to view every challenge I’ve ever faced as an opportunity and this will be no different. I've always believed that a person's character is revealed through the way they deal with those moments of adversity.

"I've always loved and had so much respect for the game of baseball. Everything I’ve done in my career has been done with that respect and appreciation in mind, and that is why I’m so grateful and humbled to accept this award tonight. Thank you again to everybody and I hope you guys enjoy the rest of your evening.”

Full text is here.

I feel bad for him. I do. But change hurts, and testing means players get caught. The game has a choice: root out steroids, and that means pain like this, or go the other way and do nothing. They're long past any worry about being bad role models or whatever (surely every serious high school athlete knows steroids are an option), but they can still make steroid use not worth it (like they made gambling not worth the risk, for most players).

Are they willing (owners and players) to do that? No, I say. Well, then they have to think seriously about just accepting steroid use.