Good evening. This is Dead Legends. The daily newsletter that loves baseball as much as Ken Griffey Jr. loved robbing homers.

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Today’s story is about a former MVP’s injury, and the bogus story that went along with it.

Without a doubt, Jeff Kent is one of the greatest second basemen in the history of our game — especially from an offensive standpoint.

His best years were with the Giants between ‘97 and ‘02.

During that 900-game stretch, he put up some pretty absurd numbers:

• 1,021 hits (almost half of his career total)

• 175 Home runs

• 247 Doubles

• .297/.368/.535

• Won the MVP in 2000

Needless to say, Kent and the Giants liked their chances going into the 2002 season.

They had a peak-performing Barry Bonds along with a loaded lineup that also included guys like J.T. Snow, Rich Aurilia, and Benito Santiago.

Unfortunately, they started having problems before the season even started.

On March 1st, the Giants announced that Jeff Kent had broken a bone in his wrist.

He would not be available for the remainder of Spring Training and potentially some of the regular season.

Of course, the first question everyone asks is: How the hell did that happen?

At the time, Kent claimed he got the injury washing his truck.

He had several eyewitnesses that had apparently seen him fall off his vehicle while cleaning it at a do-it-yourself car wash.

Ah, big leaguers, they’re just like us.

As embarrassing as the car wash story was, a new story started to emerge almost immediately.

A separate group of people came forward claiming they’d also seen Kent that day… attempting to do wheelies on his motorcycle.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Kent never flatly denied the accident.

There was 911 calls confirming that a crash of this nature happened that day, not too far from Scottsdale Stadium, but the callers did not identify Jeff by name.

According to the witnesses, they saw a man matching Kent’s description wiped out on an Arizona freeway, and after brushing himself off, asked witnesses to forget what they’d seen and move on.

Which makes sense, because there was a specific clause in his contract forbidding him from doing this kind of thing.

If Jeff had been caught by the Giants injuring himself on a motorcycle, San Francisco would’ve been entitled to void his 2002 contract — worth $6 million.

And even if they didn’t void it altogether, they could’ve docked his pay on a daily basis until he came back.

He was making around $33,000 a day at that time.

Luckily for Jeff, the Giants didn’t do either of those things, and he only missed four games of the regular season.

Kent went on to hit .313 with 37 home runs that year.

BASEBALL TRIVIA

Find the answer in the bottom of this email!

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:

Judging by the fact that Rabbit was a middle infielder, I'm assuming he was quick on his feet.

Over his 11-year career in the major leagues, Warstler didn’t really do anything spectacular on the field, but he had the unique opportunity to explore the world and share the field with some of the most iconic players in the history of the game.

In 1934, Rabbit was a member of the “All Americans” exhibition team that Connie Mack assembled for an Asia-Pacific tour.

That squad included players like Babe Ruth, Jimmy Foxx, Lou Gherig, and Lefty Gomez - pretty decent company.

THE DEAD LEGENDS ARCHIVE

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

• The Death Row All Stars: Playing ball to stay alive

• The Parachuter: Rogue Mets fan crashes Game 6

• The Boy's Hero: Jim Rice saves a child from a deadly foul ball

BASEBALL TRIVIA ANSWER: Greg maddux