An apology from Ryan Braun? No thanks

If it will make you feel better — and by you I mean Diamondback players, coaches and fans — then by all means, Ryan Braun should apologize.

He should say he’s sorry for cheating his way through the 2011 Brewers playoff win and then chronically lying his butt off about it ever since.

It won’t make me feel better. Not a lick. And it’s certainly not what I want.

I share the opinion of D-backs reliever David Hernandez who, when asked about that series in 2011, said that looking back on it was “pointless.” A Braun apology now doesn’t right a wrong, doesn’t soothe any bad feelings, and it certainly doesn’t teach anybody any lessons about right and wrong.

I think of Braun apologizing and I think of that principal from The Breakfast Club who makes those five kids write an essay about who they think they are.

Instead, what I want — what the sport needs more than a apology — is the venom showed by some of Braun’s peer group yesterday. What I want is a players union that is under pressure to not defend cheaters and crooks like Ryan Braun.

What I want, I got from the Dodgers’ Skip Schumaker, who said, “I can’t stand it. It (PED use) needs to be eliminated from the game. I have an autographed Ryan Braun jersey hanging in my baseball room at home that I’ll be taking down now because I don’t want my son connecting this with what I had to do to get to to where I am and to have what I have. In my opinion, it should be an automatic lifetime ban. One strike —- you’re out. It’s ridiculous. They’re still doing it?”

But there is more from Schumaker.

“He lied. He lied to a lot of people. I was actually convinced after that MVP year that he didn’t do anything. I think he should give that MVP trophy to Matt Kemp (runner-up in 2011). Suspend them all. It needs to get out of baseball. Watching him talk now —- it makes me sick.”

What I want, I got from the D-backs’ Willie Bloomquist, who said, “It’s nothing personal. But from a competitor’s standpoint, it’s pissing guys off. Guys are getting frustrated with the fact that why is he thinking he can still can cheat the system and get away with it? It cheats everybody else. It cheats the game. It cheats the fans. It cheats the players they are playing against.”

What I want is for Ryan Braun to be the new face of PEDs. The guy who made Major League Baseball — all of Major League Baseball — mad as hell and unwilling to take it anymore. A pariah.

So yes, I got everything I wanted yesterday. No apology necessary.

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