THE DRAFT PICK

Author

Matthew Garringer
July 23, 2023

Good evening. This is Dead Legends. The daily newsletter for baseball nerds who can’t get enough of this shit.

Let’s dive in.

Today’s story is about the biggest draft bust in MLB history.

By now, you’ve probably forgotten about a ballplayer named Brien Taylor.

Straight out of high school, the kid was drafted by the Yankees with the first overall pick in ‘91.

At the time, it seemed like a no brainer.

While playing at East Carteret High School, Taylor was a man amongst boys.

His fastball ran up into the mid-90s and his curveball was filthier than a porta potty at Coachella.

He was basically untouchable at that level.

“I’ve been through 28 drafts, and Brien Taylor, still to this day, is the best high school pitcher I’ve seen in my life.”

Scott Boras, 2006

Boras negotiated a $1.55 million signing bonus for Taylor, which was a record at the time.

Everything was going fine at first, until Brien was involved in a bar fight during the winter of ‘93.

Apparently, it involved his brother and the family of his brother's girlfriend.

There’s not many details out there about what led to the incident, but one thing we know for sure is that it definitely wasn’t worth it.

The brawl resulted in a dislocated shoulder and torn labrum for Brien.

He got surgery, but ultimately, he wasn’t the same when he came back.

Renowned surgeon, Frank Jobe, said it was one of the worst injuries he'd ever seen.

Even after the recovery, he lost 8 mph off his fastball and couldn’t throw his curveball at all.

By 2000, he was out of the game completely, retiring before ever making the MLB - he never even made it to Triple-A.

After baseball, life came at Brien hard and fast.

By 2012, he had gotten himself into a real pickle.

Somewhere along the line, Taylor traded in his spikes for a scale and jumped into the drug game.

Unfortunately, he picked up the wrong customers.

Undercover narcotics detectives had been setting him up for months, buying more than 200 grams of crack and around 100 grams of coke.

The charges were pretty serious - Brien was facing 40 years.

After pleading guilty, he ended up getting sentenced to 38 months.

SWIG FOR THE FENCES

Randall Thompson signed with the Toronto Blue Jays back in 2011 to chase his childhood dream of throwing baseballs for a living.

Unfortunately, his dreams of pitching in the show didn’t work out, but I’d argue it was a blessing in disguise.

A few years later, while Thompson was coaching at Florida Tech, the idea hit him like a 100mph comebacker to the dome piece - Mugs made out of baseball bats.

Since then, Dugout Mugs has become the go-to drinkware company for baseball fans across the world.

They’ve got an epic collection of products, so I put together a little list to help you get exactly what you want.

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:

Connie Mack and the Philadelphia Athletics had an INSANE run from 1910 to 1914 - they won four pennants and three World Series championships during that period.

John Franklin “Home Run” Baker was one of the stars on that team, and he led the American League in dingers four years in a row.

In 1915, Connie Mack completely gutted his team.

Baker wanted to stay with the team, but he also wanted more money; Mack refused to negotiate, so John sat out for the entire 1915 season.

THE DEAD LEGENDS ARCHIVE

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