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Just over two months ago, Major League Baseball announced Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Ryan Braun as the National League MVP for the 2011 season. A few weeks later, sources confirmed that Braun had tested positive for Performance Enhancing Drugs, due to extraordinarily high testosterone levels. As a result, MLB imposed the mandatory 50-game ban on Braun for the 2012 season.

Just over two weeks ago, Braun accepted the MVP honors at a dinner held for the New York chapter of Baseball Writers Association of America, where the BWAA affirmed they would not take away Braun's award. Braun never directly addressed the steroid allegations surrounding his award-winning season, nor the positive test results that resulted in his ban. Instead he told the audience, "Everything I have done in my career has been done with respect and appreciation for the game of baseball."

Braun's remarks, the BWAA's choice to stand behind their decision, and MLB are all to blame for what was a terrible ending to an exciting 2011 season. Even worse, it sets a terrible precedent for handling positive PED test results in the future.

Braun's remarks, the BWAA's choice to stand behind their decision, and MLB are all to blame for what was a terrible ending to an exciting 2011 season.

First and foremost, Braun maintained his innocence in the days immediately following the test results becoming public. Cloaked behind a veil of generalities and vagueness, Braun and his camp cited "highly unusual circumstances" to explain what they called false positive test results. Coupled with his brazen speech at the MVP award ceremony, Braun never directly came forward to assure MLB and its fans that he never took steroids.

Perhaps he wanted to take the high ground, feeling so strongly that the test results were a gaffe and that he was innocent. Maybe he wouldn't dare stoop to the levels of those who would accuse him of doing something so disgraceful to the game that had just undergone the painful and notorious Congressional testimonies some short years ago.

Along those lines, maybe he had visions of Rafael Palmeiro wagging his finger at Congress, only to later be found completely guilty, and looking like a hypocritical moron in front of the entire country. As a result, maybe Braun did not want to have his own finger wagging come back to bite him on YouTube.

Mark J. Rebilas-US PRESSWIRE

Either way, Braun did more to fuel the speculation than allay any fears that he is dirty. In more recent weeks, he chose to hide behind released statements and lawyers. In fact, by failing to directly come out and vehemently oppose the decision of MLB to suspend him for 50 games, Braun continues to spit in the face of the league's new drug testing process, and undermines any confidence that the fans have in the system.

And Major League Baseball is directly to blame as well. Sure, the league has stuck to its guns and — so far — its decision to suspend Braun. And it has highlighted that each of the samples that generate a positive result for PEDs has a corresponding half that is sent to a separate lab for more rigorous testing. They try really hard.

But the league is hiding behind their process as much as Braun is hiding behind his vague claims of innocence.

Understandably, MLB does not need to hold wave after wave of news conferences, press releases, and fanfare to tear down a player who was just voted Most Valuable Player. In the wake of the tarnished era of the 90s and early 2000s, the league would be foolish to bring about heaps of added negative attention.

Commissioner Bud Selig could take this opportunity to express his sincere disappointment in Braun's test results, and continue to emphasize that the league will have zero tolerance for those who choose to disgrace the game. The focus in a statement like that is on the ways that the league chooses to keep the game clean and fair, and not necessarily on those who would selfishly challenge that responsibility.

Instead, MLB’s almost casual approach to the suspension of the reigning MVP of the National League leaves behind the same ethereal uncomfortable feeling that Braun's own comments bring about.

The names have surfaced before, and not even some of the biggest ones — Manny Ramirez, for one — could shock the sports world anymore, short of someone who is so thoroughly revered like Derek Jeter. That is because as much as the media is berated for fawning over the celebrity-player, the fans still spend millions to read about them, buy their jerseys, and watch them play.

If Braun is proved to be the villain, then the league has failed to institute testing that not only catches culprits, but truly discourages them from doping.

So can you really blame the BWAA for not rescinding Braun's award? The same people who make a living writing about how a small market player like him can propel his team into the playoffs? The same people who wouldn't give Mark McGwire a snowball's chance in hell to make the Hall of Fame?

Can you blame Ryan Braun, who after making about $490,000 a year, now gets to sit out 50 games and still come back to a contract extension worth $105 million dollars?

Of course, Braun continues to challenge the results of his test in the legal arena. Perhaps that is why both he and MLB are short on details and long on posturing. If somehow, someway, the results are found to be invalid and Braun is exonerated, at least one sports writer would be glad to admit they were absolutely wrong.

But if Braun is proved to be the villain, then the league has failed to institute testing that not only catches culprits, but truly discourages them from doping. Baseball will have added to its recently tarnished legend, and players who cut corners will continue to be rewarded for blatantly breaking the rules.