Good morning! This is Dead Legends. The newsletter for baseball nerds who can’t get enough of this sh*t.

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.

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.

Fact-based news without bias awaits. Make 1440 your choice today.

Overwhelmed by biased news? Cut through the clutter and get straight facts with your daily 1440 digest. From politics to sports, join millions who start their day informed.

Sign up 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:

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.