Ryan Braun finally admits drug use in 2011

Ryan Braun has finally admitted taking performance-enhancing drugs during his NL MVP season of 2011.

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

"I have disappointed the people closest to me - the ones who fought for me because they truly believed me all along," Braun said in the statement. "I kept the truth from everyone. For a long time, I was in denial and convinced myself that I had not done anything wrong.

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

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"It is important that people understand that I did not share details of what happened with anyone until recently. My family, my teammates, the Brewers organization, my friends, agents, and advisors had no knowledge of these facts, and no one should be blamed but me. Those who put their necks out for me have been embarrassed by my behavior. I don't have the words to express how sorry I am for that."

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.

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

As reported by "60 Minutes," Braun was one of the players implicatedin documents leaked from New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez's inner circle in February regarding the doping investigation. The leak came just days after the weekly newspaper Miami New Times published documents in January detailing Rodriguez's pervasive use of performance enhancing drugs.

The handwritten documents of Anthony Bosch, the key witness in Major League Baseball's PED investigation, and who ran Biogenesis, revealed comprehensive doping regimens that Bosch had engineered for a host of professional athletes. His cooperation with MLB has resulted in the suspension of Rodriguez and 13 other major league players.

Braun and Cervelli's names were redacted in the Miami New Times documents. Members of Rodriguez's camp at the time obtained unredacted versions and leaked them to Yahoo! Sports, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

In a statement to "60 Minutes," Rodriguez lawyer David Cornwell said that the allegations were untrue. Rodriguez himself recently said the reports about his former inner circle leaking the documents were false.