Ryan Braun is an asshole.
Not because he used performance enhancing drugs (PEDs), lots of baseball players have and probably still do that. But because of his arrogant denials to the charges, even going so far as to "bet my life" he was innocent while criticizing a urine-sample collector's actions as "fatally flawed."
Baseball's 2011 MVP and five-time All-Star doped, lied and, in the end, got caught. He accepted a 65-game suspension Monday, ending his season and reserving his spot alongside Pete Rose as one of the sport's all-time liars. He'll lose $20,070 in salary every day for the rest of 2013.
And really, considering his brash denials, it isn't nearly enough.
"We won," Braun chortled last February after winning an appeal on a technicality. "Because the truth is on my side. The truth is always relevant, and at the end of the day, the truth prevailed."
A short pause while we all vomit. ... And then giggle.
Since Braun's punishment stems from his dealings with the Biogenesis Clinic in Miami, who's next? Alex Rodriguez? Or perhaps Rangers' All-Star outfielder Nelson Cruz?
While we wait for Braun's buddy
Aaron Rodgers to pay off on his bold wager of a year's salary if the Brewers' outfielder wasn't telling the truth, let's try to put the latest lies into some historical perspective.
Since
my old truth-twisting partner isn't eligible, who then is the boldest liar in the history of sports?
(continued from page 1)
10. Rosie Ruiz - The unknown "won" the 1980 Boston Marathon, but later admitted under intense scrutiny that she, in fact, jumped out of the crowd and only ran the final mile of the race.
9. Floyd Landis/Tyler Hamilton - The American cyclists provided two of the most ridiculous excuses for their positive drug tests. In 2008 Landis blamed his on whiskey; Hamilton, in 2005, on a "vanishing twin" who supposedly left traces of PEDs in his mom's uterus before dying in utero. He finally confessed five years later.
8. Nick Saban - Late in the Miami Dolphins' 2006 season he was asked about the coaching vacancy at Alabama. "Let me repeat this for those of you can't seem to understand," Saban said sternly at a press conference in December, "I'm not going to be the Alabama coach." Three weeks later he left Miami ... for Alabama.
7. Danny Almonte - The 12-year-old New Yorker dominated the Little League World Series in 2001 ... because he was actually 14. Using an altered birth certificate to play against younger, smaller, weaker opponents, he pitched a perfect game and hurled 75-mph fastballs before tournament officials caught him and his father in the elaborate lie.
6. Rafael Palmeiro - His repeated finger-wagging denials - "I have never used steroids. Period!" - to Congress in 2005 makes him the poster boy for not telling the truth. Even under oath.
(continued from page 2)
5. Ryan Braun - His arrogance and calling out of an honest sample-collector makes his lies all the more disgusting. "I truly believe in my heart and I would bet my life that this substance never entered my body at any point," he said last year. His life ain't over. But his career should be.
4. Bobby Petrino - A world-class liar on two fronts, he first promised the Atlanta Falcons he wasn't leaving as their head coach before bolting to Arkansas. Then as a Razorback he lied to administrators about the details of his 2012 motorcycle crash, conveniently leaving out the bits about the girl on the back being his mistress, whom he had hired a week earlier to be a football staff assistant.
3. Marion Jones - One of the most dominant sprinters in Olympic history, the American returned five medals and had her name wiped from the record books in 2007 when she confessed to doping and lying to federal agents after a decade of vehement denials.
2. Pete Rose - Steadfastly denied ever betting on baseball until 2004 when he confessed ahead of the release of his new book. His lies have permanently banned him from the Hall of Fame.
1. Lance Armstrong - Lance Liestrong's transcendent web of fibs covered 7 Tours de France, ruined the careers of numerous cyclists - even some teammates - and misled millions of cancer patients into believing he was an authentic hero.
