I’m guessing he would’ve needed a pre-approved exemption to be allowed to take the medication and not face penalties.

The only possible exception might (and this is a long shot) be if he attempted to talk to someone with MLB or a trainer to ask if the medication would cause him to test positive, and was given bad information.

then he’s fine.

MLB’s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Policy calls for strict liability among players, meaning if a player tests positive, the league is “not required to otherwise establish intent, fault, negligence or knowing use of a Prohibited Substance on the Player’s part to establish such a violation.”

Even if a player can establish he did not knowingly take a banned substance, he must show he was not in any way negligent to appeal successfully. For example, taking a dietary supplement that contains an unlabeled performance-enhancing drug would not be sufficient grounds for appeal, but if he were to show that he ingested something that was either tampered with or no player reasonably could have assumed to have been contaminated, the appeal might succeed.

but given that he’s extremely likely to get suspended regardless of the reason, it’s good to know it wasn’t premeditated.

I doubt it, because Braun still should have known what he was putting into his body, and even if it was unkowingly, he still had an elevated level of testosterone, which gave him an unfair edge.

Comment on BCB → forums → twitter → terez owens → tmz

but TMZ reported Michael Jackson’s death first, the Tiger Woods ‘accident’ first (IIRC) among other things.

If he was clean, and from all appearances and information that I’ve heard he was, he lost a lot because he played in the steroid era. He’s got pretty good reason to be bitter about their use.