Statistics.

"It isn't so long now since Ryan Braun won his appeal and got his 50-game suspension overturned and what he still hasn't explained - even as he apparently thinks his story should be the one in 'Les Miserables' — is how was enough of a scientific genius to do all that.

Spike two samples perfectly.

Fool the testers at the lab.

I mean, if Laurenzi can do all that, he's wasting his time on urine samples, the guy ought to be an art thief figuring out a way to rob the Met.

How did he do it?

And why did he do it?"

Braun indirectly attacked Laurenzi, this is true, but Braun has not charged Laurenzi with a crime.

False negatives are real things. Remember the NBA in the 1980s? When nobody failed a drug test? Instead of concluding the league is clean, one may conclude the test was flawed.

False positives are also real things (though they are "extremely unlikely" -- kind of like Braun's likelihood of overturning his drug test results, given MLB's previous overturn percentage of 0.00%) .

The testosterone levels of Braun's drug tests are something like this: 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1,1 , 20, 20, 1, 1, 1. Probably exaggerated for the sake of this illustration.

The highest previous reading in the history of testosterone is 10.

So would you conclude that Braun suddenly used twice as much testosterone as anyone in history? Or might you conclude that the test was mistaken somehow? A clerical error, a damaged sample, a faulty calibration, etc.

I'm not saying this happened in this case for sure; I'm saying it happens for sure.

If your thermometer says it's 1,000 degrees outside, it's most likely a problem with your thermometer.

Why would Laurenzi do it? Maybe he's a Cardinals fan. Or maybe somebody at the lab is a Cardinals fan. Or maybe somebody at the lab is a trickster or an incompetent intern or maybe the lab thinks Six Sigma is a fraternity.

Which is one reason -- the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights being the primary reason -- pro baseball players shouldn't even give urine samples in the first place.

"If the Yankees are going to get under that $189 million threshold by 2014, they better hope that Curtis Granderson stops hitting all those home runs.

Seriously, how do you pay him, and Cano, and keep paying A-Rod and Sabathia and Teixeira?"

They won't lower their payroll all the way to $189 million. Shrug.

Hal (not Hank) Steinbrenner is actually somewhat intelligent. He is correctly asserting that the Yankees can produce similar results with young players, particularly young pitchers.

In other words: Fewer A.J. Burnetts, more Aldo Novas.