Good evening. This is Dead Legends. The daily newsletter that loves baseball as much as Connie Mack loved wearing bowler hats.

Let’s dive in.

Today’s story is about an absurd attempt to avoid a PED suspension.

In 2012, Melky Cabrera was having the best season of his life.

For the first time, he was an All Star, leading the league in hits, and through 113 games, he had a batting average of .346 with an OBP of almost .400.

Unfortunately, it was all a facade.

On August 15, MLB slapped Cabrera a 50-game suspension when he tested positive for high level of testosterone.

Almost immediately, he owned up and admitted the mistake.

Should’ve left it at that.

But it seems Melky had a change of heart, because shortly after he made this statement, his team launched a bizarre plan to reverse the suspension.

The scheme was meant to exploit a clause in the drug program that lets a player who’s tested positive attempt to prove that they didn't actually mean to take something they weren't supposed to.

Enter Juan Nunez; one of the guys in Melky’s entourage.

Nunez was paid $10,000 to create a fake website with a fake product and marketed it online - all with the sole purpose of getting Melky out of his suspension.

Melky and his team cited this fake product as the reason for his positive test, saying he unknowingly ingested testosterone through what he thought was something that was totally legal.

MLB and their investigators didn’t buy that shit at all.

They upheld Cabrera’s 50-game suspension and he stayed out for the remainder of the season.

Though he was eligible to play in the World Series, the Giants left him off the roster, but he still got a ring.

Plus, the Blue Jays signed him to a two-year $16 million deal the next year.

So as much as I hate to say it, in this particular case, cheating kinda paid off.

ON THE SPOT

Our friends at BreakT do something that’s super unique; they make real-time sports apparel.

Pretty much as soon as something big happens in the game, they’ve got merchandise on their site celebrating the moment.

For example, these are their two newest tees from last night:

Sorry Phillies fans, I know that wound is still fresh.

There’s a lot more where this came from though - they’ve got thousands of MLB tees on the site right now.

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:

Quinn was a relief pitcher for the Cubs back in ‘41 and he lived up to his name.

He pitched in three games, racking up a total of five innings and giving up four earned runs.

Other than this brief taste of the Big Leagues, Wimpy played in the minors for 13 years.

THE DEAD LEGENDS ARCHIVE

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• The House of David: How a religious cult became legendary on the baseball field

• The Twitch: Overcoming Turette’s and winning a World Series

• The San Diego Chicken: A battle over baseball’s most beloved bird