http://ppt.cc/Iuk; Ryan Braun is trying to avoid a 50-game suspension from Major League Baseball. Ryan Braun, the National League’s Most Valuable Player, pleaded his case Thursday before a three-member panel that will decide whether he faces a 50-game suspension for testing positive for elevated levels of testosterone. The appeal came just two days before Braun will accept his MVP award at the New York Chapter of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America’s dinner Saturday night at the New York Hilton, sources familiar with Braun told the Daily News. A decision by the panel, which includes MLB Players Association executive director Michael Weiner, MLB executive vice president for labor relations Rob Manfred and independent arbitrator Shyam Das, is not expected to come before Braun accepts his award. It was unclear if the hearing would continue into Friday. Braun and his representatives have strongly denied that he took a performance-enhancing drug and were expected to challenge the "insanely high" levels of his test on several fronts, as the Daily News previously reported. Those challenges could include the veracity of the test itself, chain of custody issues or an inadvertent ingestion of a substance or drug on the banned list. The MLB drug policy rules prohibit players from taking any banned drugs or substances, even if accidentally. According to a source, Braun tested "insanely high, the highest ever for anyone who has ever taken a test, twice the level of the highest test ever taken." The never-before-seen ratio was characterized as one of several "highly unusual circumstances" Braun's camp referred to regarding the test. He took another test not administered by baseball after he was notified of the positive MLB test, the results of which were normal, according to his representatives. His lawyer, David Cornwell, told The News in December that the positive test was not the result of taking a performance-enhancing drug. "He did not take performance-enhancing drugs," Cornwell said, "and anyone who writes that is wrong." “A lot of things were wrong,” added another person familiar with the test. The Milwaukee outfielder, however, is playing a game that no major leaguer has won; despite conflicting reports, no player has ever seen a suspension overturned by the arbitration panel, according to people familiar with the process. It is possible for a player to test positive for a banned substance and see his case dismissed in advance of arbitration because of chain of custody or other issues, without the public ever learning of his positive test. But Braun is past that point, and is looking to the arbitration panel as his final chance to avoid suspension. Baseball's collective bargaining agreement provides an appeals process following a positive test, which is supposed to be kept confidential until the panel hears the case. However, Braun's results were leaked to ESPN in December. --

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