Melky Cabrera was handed down a 50-game suspension on Wednesday after testing positive for performance enhancing drugs. When you consider that nearly all Cabrera’s statistics spiked this season, a positive PED test isn’t that surprising.  What is surprising is that Cabrera was involved in creating a fake website and product in an attempt to convince Major League Baseball he had taken the testosterone unknowingly. From the New York Daily News:

The scheme began unfolding in July as Cabrera and his representatives scrambled to explain a spike in the former Yankee’s testosterone levels. 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.

Yes, Melky Cabrera is a modern-day Stephen Glass.

Nunez told The News Saturday that he was “accepting responsibility for what everyone else already knows,” regarding the fake website, adding that the Levinsons were not involved in the website in any way. They also adamantly deny any knowledge of the scheme or having been involved with it.

In theory, Cabrera realized he had been caught and came up with this plan with Nunez. They then used this fake website in a presentation to Major League Baseball. This obviously did not get far. Maybe the most beautiful part of all this? According to the Daily News, Cabrera was just trying to “repeat the success Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Ryan Braun found earlier this year in challenging the evidence in arbitration.”

[New York Daily News]