Braun’s a lucky bastard … or not!

Ryan Braun may have won his appeal of his
50-game ban, but his PED saga is still far
from over as far as MLB is concerned.

Milwaukee Brewers reigning NL MVP Ryan Braun is one lucky bastard … or is he? 

Sure, Braun had his 50-game suspension overturned last Thursday by baseball arbitrator Shyam Das, but all that did was piss off Commissioner Bud Selig and the Major League Baseball officials that wanted to nail Braun’s ass to the wall for his alleged cheating.

Now, it’s come to light that Braun did still get a positive test for traces of synthetic testosterone, but that he got off on a technicality due to the fact that the courier that collected his urine sample did not immediately ship it off for testing, thereby creating an opportunity where the specimen could have become tainted (even though the seal on the sample was still intact).

Travis Tygart, chief executive officer of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, called the decision to reinstate Braun "a real gut-kick to clean athletes."

"To have this sort of technicality of all technicalities let a player off ... it's just a sad day for all the clean players and those that abide by the rules within professional baseball," he said.

The decision was announced last Thursday , just one day before the 28-year-old outfielder was due to report to spring training in Maryvale, Ariz and the outfielder immediately proclaimed justice was served.

"I am very pleased and relieved by today's decision," Braun said in a statement. "It is the first step in restoring my good name and reputation. We were able to get through this because I am innocent and the truth is on our side.

Nevertheless, Braun’s situation is far from over, just a bit more complicated as Major League Baseball ramps up it effort to stop Braun from being the first player to successfully win an appeal after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs.