Braun's Suspension Puts Former Baseball Player In "Tough Spot"

Ryan Braun's 65-game suspension may be all the buzz on social media, but for Caledonia resident Lee Jaramillo -- who was a catcher for the Milwaukee Brewers minor league team in 1998 -- Braun’s suspension is a sensitive subject for him.

He coaches his son’s little league team, his brother Jason Jaramillo played for the Pirates and is still trying to get back into Major League Baseball, and he and his brothers own Forceout Glove, a protective baseball glove.

Lee sees the work Jason is putting into playing the game while he’s also trying to teach his little league players about the ethics of playing honest baseball, but Braun’s suspension clouds all of that.

“Here’s Jason and he’s trying to work his way up and playing honestly,” Lee said. “But this also puts me into a tough spot as a coach for my son’s little league team.”

Lee coaches for the Cub’s, part of Racine Youth Sports, and he sees Braun’s suspension as an opportunity to teach his players not to lie and to play the game honestly. Still, he has plenty of players on his team that want to be like Braun while some of his other players point out that “he’s (Braun) a liar.”

“I’ve been trying to temper that and telling them to wait until the truth comes out, but what do you say now?” Lee said.

Lee plans on getting his players together tonight to tell them that they need to play honestly, to tell the truth and if you get caught doing the wrong thing it’s much better to own up to it right there and then.

“Kids look up to big leaguers, a little too much in my opinion,” he said. “They want to aspire to be them, and be baseball players.”

But Lee stresses to his kids that being a solid baseball player isn’t all about talent, it’s about doing the work of being a solid baseball player.

The issue has also been a pretty sensitive topic on social media sites. Here’s what you said on Facebook:

Mary Jerger-Osterman: Innocent until proven guilty, but if he is guilty of PEDs then he's also guilty of lying and then swearing to it...and dragging Aaron Rodgers in to it.

Mike Rosenbaum: Who cares people make mistakes and there are other things more pressing like the unemployment or gas prices!