I woke in the middle of the night — like, literally, midnight — in the throes of jet lag.

I fired up the laptop, and on the New York Times home page I saw two stories, one above the other.

Royal baby born!

Ryan Braun suspended for rest of season!

Guess which one I read first?

Braun. Of course.

Royal babies come along all the time.

A recent National League MVP conceding he doped … or conceding he made “mistakes”, anyway, happens rarely, if ever.

Braun likely will have the fury of Milwaukee turned upon him. By all accounts, Brewers fans backed him pretty much unconditionally, and for him to insist he was innocent right up to the point when he conceded guilt and agreed to a 65-game suspension … well, that makes fans unhappy.

In several ways, Braun’s situation was not dissimilar to Lance Armstrong’s. The long period of excellence, the rumors of drugging, the constant denials and threats to sue … and then one day the complete 180 and the admission of lies and guilt.

Remember, Braun failed a test after the 2011 season, but beat the rap by getting a lawyer to attack the testing on a “chain of custody” thing. The tester had stored Braun’s urine in his home refrigerator over the weekend rather than taking it directly to the lab. As if anyone wants to handle urine any more than he has to.

Justice was served, albeit a year late, when Braun was front and center of the Biogenesis mess.

As analysts have suggested, baseball’s evidence must have been persuasive for Braun to suddenly give up his “I’m innocent!” shtick and go away for the final two-plus months of the season.

(Also, he’s been dinged up for weeks; it’s not like he was scalding the ball. And the Brewers are awful and out of contention. Hardly could pick a better time, in terms of the game, to disappear for a while.)

Now, for the rest of the Biogenesis crew. The other dozen-plus guys with dealings, apparently, with the Miami-based “anti-aging” center. Among them: Alex Rodriguez, Nelson Cruz, Jhonny Peralta …

And can we have a shout-out for Bud Selig, baseball commissioner?

Bud pretty much slept through the zenith of drugging in baseball, when guys were hitting 70 home runs.

But he did not step back from this one, even though he rose to the top job in ball after having been the owner of Braun’s team, the Milwaukee Brewers. Actually, it seemed as if Selig shifted into “righteous wrath” mode, and if Braun were, in fact, guilty … he was going down. Bud had gone Dirty Harry on him.

If Selig was as angry as he seems, and as intent on punishing the other Biogenesis malefactors … well, I’m all for it. We do not need these distractions. We do not need dirty players among non-dirty players.

I care about this a lot more than a royal baby.