A month after acknowledging he made “mistakes,” Ryan Braun admitted taking performance-enhancing drugs during his NL MVP season of 2011.

The suspended Milwaukee slugger said in a statement released Thursday by the Brewers that he took a cream and a lozenge containing banned substances while rehabilitating an injury.

“It was a huge mistake for which I am deeply ashamed and I compounded the situation by not admitting my mistakes immediately,” Braun said.

Braun tested positive for elevated testosterone in October 2011, but his 50-game suspension was overturned when an arbitrator ruled that the urine sample was mishandled.

Braun apologized to the collector of the urine sample, his teammates and Commissioner Bud Selig.

“I have no one to blame but myself. I know that over the last year and a half I made some serious mistakes, both in the information I failed to share during my arbitration hearing and the comments I made to the press afterwards,” Braun said. “I have disappointed the people closest to me — the ones who fought for me because they truly believed me all along. I kept the truth from everyone. For a long time, I was in denial and convinced myself that I had not done anything wrong.”

Last month he accepted a 65-game suspension resulting from Major League Baseball’s investigation of the Biogenesis of America anti-aging clinic.

 


Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.