A Mostly Fact Based Look at Ryan Braun’s Herpes Simplex Claim

Major League baseball fans will be very interested in the usual ho-hum awards dinner in Manhattan tonight organized by the New York Chapter of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.  It’s believed that Ryan Braun will state that he has legit reasons why he isn’t guilty of violating the MLB drug testing policy.  The rumor is that Braun has/had herpes.

Presumably, the treatment that Braun put in his body to combat the herpes simplex is the reason the 2011 MVP now faces a 50-game suspension from his profession as a Major League, Pittsburgh Pirates killing, baseball player.

Because we’ve never felt that we were bullet proof enough to pull as much ass as the Hebrew Hammer, we have no idea about a disease like herpes.

Some believe that Ryan Braun will one day soon be the face of herpes, just like Lance Armstrong is the face of testicular cancer, so rather than waiting for ESPN to educates us on the disease, we thought we should take a few minutes and learn about this nasty shit.

We could have driven to speak with some of the best doctors on the planet at Johns Hopkins University, but we decided to check YouTube instead.

Sure enough, there it was.  The Sex Guide Guru.  Every answer we would need to determine what the percentages were that Ryan Braun might have a chance at an appeal was right before our eyes broken down in ten easy to follow facts.  We put on our protection and hit play.

We listened closely to Alice W. Ko, MD explain the facts about herpes simplex.

"The contagious viral infection targets the mouth or genitals.  The disease manifests itself as painful sores on either of these areas (the mouth or the genitals.)"

Fact #1 states that herpes is contagious all of the time and it’s presence is visible as painful sores on the mouth and genitals.   We weren’t able to find any photographs of visible sores on the you-pitched-me-to-close- bitchy-ass mouth of Ryan Braun.

Thus, we can only presume that the disease must have been on his genitals.

So how in the world did Braun hit like a beast mode monster with such pain coming from his man junk region?

We tend to believe that if photos existed of Braun having herp on his lips,  the likelihood of winning his appeal would increase dramatically.  However, after scouring google images, brewers.com, reviewingthebrew.com, and other Brewers-insert-funny-drunken-blog-name-here websites—we’ve come up empty.

Perhaps the Braun defense team have employed some photoshopping wizards that we don’t know about, but if they don’t have proof, Braun’s chances obviously reduce by at least fifty percentage points.

Braun’s testing for elevated levels of testosterone  during the 2011 season will be decided by three people.  Michael Weiner, the executive director of the MLPA; Rob Manfred, MLB Executive VP for Labor Relations; and Shyam Das, an independent arbitrator.

The Braun case won’t have an O.J. Simpson glove–if it doesn’t fit, you’ve got to acquit like moment.  But the Braun case does have one similar line:  No herp on the lip, you gotta admit.

But…..could there be a surprise witness that has photographic or video proof of such sores on Braun’s junk?

Now that could be the real stunner in this case.  If someone has full-length proof of such sores on Braun’s shit, he might have a shot at becoming the first major leaguer to win such an appeal under the stringent MLB drug policy.

But seriously, what are the odds of some sick gold digger keeping that nasty shit on his/her phone?  Surely Deadspin would have purchased such pictures for $43 already.

Can you imagine if you were in charge of uploading random penis herpes picture on google images?  That has to be such a horrific job, but we digress.

The bottom line is the likelihood of someone walking around with shots of a herpes filled Braun penis seem very unlikely.

Could Braun himself have such pictures?  He might.  Especially since he seems to have similar character traits as one unnamed quarterback from the cheese-loving area who had a fondness for taking his own pictures.

Point #2 states that ninety percent of people with herpes don’t know they have the disease.  So I guess we can say Ryan Braun is one of the ten percent?

Point #3 states that herpes can be spread without having sex.  So how in the hell wouldn’t most of the players, at the very least, those near him in the Brewers lineup have caught the virus?

Surely you have seen some of the ridiculous celebrations the Brewers perform right?  Hold on, wait a second…maybe there is a reason Prince Fielder would only touch Braun’s batting gloves?  Maybe the ducking of Braun’s punches after a homerun was a calcuated move by Prince?  The foot bump did seem to catch on more as the playoffs progressed didn’t it?  I bet just like Tater Tracker records the seconds it takes for players to complete their home run trots, some Brewers fan has the percentages of increased foot only celebrations by Braun and his teammates during the 2011 MLB Playoffs.

We could continue going through the other facts from the Sex Guide Guru, but for us, it comes down to this.  If Braun has a blood test from a reasonably state-certified doctor stating he did have the herpes simplex on such-and-such a date, Braun improves his chances of at least making this appeal interesting.  It still won’t erase the fact that he ingested something that caused a record setting blip on his yellow bayonent test result.

Without factual proof he had herpes and the medicine, which he apparently took without informing MLB, was the direct result of his hot piss test , Braun’s appeal is a waste of time.  In essence, the blood test proving Braun had herpes simplex could be the visual proof the three-member panel can lean on–just like the jury watched O.J. Simpson squeeze on those isotoners in that courtroom long ago.

If there isn’t a positive blood test, there will be too many lingering doubts in the minds of the three-member panel.

The biggest question we have is why didn’t Braun simply tell MLB he had herpes?  Looking back on it now, Braun would have been wise to inform the league that he was required to take some medicine to help the painful sores, presumambly on his genitals.

A proactive announcement by Braun would have been a warning as to what was in store for the man who donned the goggles to examine his 200 proof piss.

Major League Baseball might have understood.    At the very least, we think they would have at least winced in pain as Braun told them about the situation.

Instead Braun melted those goggles. Tonight in Manhattan, he will stand clutching his MVP trophy, as he attempts to explain it all away.