Melky Cabrera Tries to Create The SubInternet

After Melky Cabrera was suspended for performance enhancing drugs, Victor Conte of BALCO fame, came out and straight up said he was dumb. The tweet:

Only the dumb get caught RT @adolfont: Why still some were caught? Are those stupid?

— Victor Conte (@VictorConte) August 13, 2012

While some probably agreed with Conte, who also said half of current Major Leaguers are using some type of artificial testosterone, I think the larger majority consider Conte a bit of a crackpot. Turns out, he was at least right about Melky Cabrera’s intelligence.

After being snagged by the drug test and during the appeals process, Cabrera and/or his agents, hired Juan Cruz to create a fake website and product information so that Cabrera could appeal his suspension under the auspices that the supplement he used was wrongly labeled. Or something.

From the New York Daily News who originally reported the story:

“The idea, apparently, was to lay a trail of digital breadcrumbs suggesting Cabrera had ordered a supplement that ended up causing the positive test, and to rely on a clause in the collectively bargained drug program that allows a player who has tested positive to attempt to prove he ingested a banned substance through no fault of his own.

“There was a product they said caused this positive,” one source familiar with the case said of Cabrera’s scheme. “Baseball figured out the ruse pretty quickly.”

I’m guessing the site shouldn’t have been called www.faultylabeledrxdrugs.co.uk.

This is one of the weirdest stories you’ll probably ever read about baseball, but also reveals how boring today’s schemes are compared with the pulp age. Did Melky Cabrera (or his agents) hire someone to break the legs of the appeals board and scare them into letting him off scot free? Did Cabrera (or his agents) engage in blackmail or a high-speed game of chicken? No. They created a fake website. Welcome to 2012 where even our criminals are blogging!

This also ruins the lone positive Cabrera had following his suspension, namely that he immediately released a statement where he confessed and didn’t offer any excuses for his test result. Now we know it’s only because his other harebrained schemes came up short.