In the span of about five days, Melky Cabrera has gone from one of the best all-around hitters in baseball to cheater and manipulator. As if the 50-game suspension Cabrera was given on Wednesday for testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs wasn’t enough, the story has gotten even more out of control.
According to a report from the NY Daily News, Cabrera and his camp created a fictitious website during the appeals process in an attempt to prove that he inadvertently took the banned substance that resulted in his positive drug test.
Cabrera associate Juan Nunez, described by the player’s agents, Seth and Sam Levinson, as a “paid consultant” of their firm but not an “employee,” is alleged to have paid $10,000 to acquire the phony website. 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.”
An ugly situation for the 28-year-old just got much, much worse. Nunez told the NY Daily News on Saturday that he is “accepting responsibility” for the website and that Cabrera and his agents, Seth and Sam Levinson, were not involved with its creation in any way.
You know what they say — the only thing worse than a cheater is a cheater who creates a fake website in an attempt to prove that he wasn’t cheating.
Fist pound to Big League Stew
