Good evening. This is Dead Legends. The baseball newsletter that never leaves you hangin’.

Let's dive in.

Today's story is about a ballplayer turned conman who went to jail, escaped, and disappeared without a trace.

Pearce Nuget Chiles was a baseball player in the 1890s who was known to be a pretty vile human being.

Chiles never stayed in one place too long, playing for various minor-league teams in different leagues across the country.

He also left a trail of crime behind him everywhere he went.

In the mid-90s, while he was residing in Phoenix, Pearce learned the authorities were after him for relations he'd had with a 16-year-old girl in Missouri.

Of course, Chiles went on the run, but he had the audacity to keep playing ball for other teams in different parts of the country.

He served as a player-manager for the Phillies from 1899-1900.

During that time, he organized one of the earliest sign-stealing scandals in baseball history.

In early January of 1901, his bad karma finally caught up to him.

Chiles and an accomplice tried to steal money from a soldier on a train, but they were caught and arrested.

While awaiting trial, Chiles reached out to his old baseball buddies for help, but nobody came to his side.

His accomplice folded, so Pearce pleaded guilty.

The details are murky, but somehow during his two-year sentence, he managed to escape from prison.

Once out from behind bars, Chiles moved around frequently.

In 1903, he made his way up to the Pacific Coast League, but was quickly dismissed and banned after assaulting another young woman.

Shortly after that, he disappeared completely.

FROM THE BIG SCREEN

Our friends at Homage are connoisseurs of everything related to sports and pop culture.

So naturally, they’ve got a bunch of gear inspired by our favorite baseball movies.

Here’s some of our top picks:

Quick Links:

• You’re Killin’ Me Smalls 

• Legends Never Die

• The Church of Baseball

• One Chance to Do Something Great

• Wild Thing

• No Crying in Baseball

• The Whole F-ing Thing

• Pitcher’s Got a Big Butt

• The High Stinky Cheese

• Is this Heaven?

STRANGE NAMES

If you're just joining us, we play this game every day where we try to find the weirdest names throughout baseball history.

Why? Don't ask us, it's just something we like to do.

If you've been rocking with us for awhile now, you know what time it is.

Today's winner is:

Felix “Tippy” Martinez pitched in the big leagues for 14 years.

He spent most of his career with the Orioles, and helped them win a World Series in ‘83.

Tippy is probably most famous for picking off three runners in the same inning, but it never would’ve happened without his teammate Lenn Sakata.

It was the 10th inning and Martinez was on the mound against the Blue Jays.

The Orioles had replaced their starting catcher and his backup while rallying to tie the game in the ninth inning, so they put Sakata in.

Lenn hadn’t played catcher since his Little League days, and because of this, every runner that made it to first base that inning took an obscenely large lead.

One by one, Tippy picked off every single one of them.

It’s the only time that anyone has picked off three runners in one inning, and it’ll probably never happen again.

THE DEAD LEGENDS ARCHIVE

If you like this story, check out some of our past favorites:

• The Wild Flight: Mets f**k up a plane

• The Comeback: Why Sandy Koufax almost quit baseball before becoming a Hall of Famer

• The First Strike: How a bunch of scrubs got to play against world champs