Angels starting pitcher Matt Harvey is one of four current and former Angels players who testified that they received oxycodone pills from former Angels employee Eric Prescott Kay, who is accused of providing Tyler Skaggs the drugs that led to the pitcher’s overdose death. Michael Ainsworth/Associated Press
FORT WORTH, Texas — Four major league players testified Tuesday that they received oxycodone pills from a former Los Angeles Angels employee accused of providing Tyler Skaggs the drugs that led to the pitcher’s overdose death.
Pitchers Matt Harvey, Mike Morin and Cam Bedrosian and first baseman C.J. Cron all took the stand and described bits and pieces of recreational drug use allegedly going on in and around the Angels three years ago, when they played for the team. They were with the Angels at some point from 2017-19, the years federal prosecutors say Eric Kay obtained drugs for players. Kay faces drug distribution and drug conspiracy charges.
Prosecutors rested their case to finish the most dramatic day of the weeklong trial, which included testimony from Skaggs’ widow about the last time she saw her husband and the last text she received from him the night before he was found dead in a suburban Dallas hotel room.
“I’m sorry, guys,” Carli Skaggs told the 10-woman, two-man jury at one point during several pauses to try to speak more clearly or compose herself. “This is just really hard for me.”
Skaggs’ emotional appearance came after her husband’s former teammates spent the morning explaining their own drug use, how they got drugs from Kay, Skaggs and other sources while saying that the use of oxycodone and over-the-counter medications such as Tylenol was common in the big leagues.
The defense, which is disputing the prosecution’s contention that Kay delivered drugs to Skaggs after the team traveled to Texas, opens its case Wednesday in downtown Fort Worth. The federal court is about 15 miles from the home of the Texas Rangers where the Angels were supposed to play the day Skaggs’ body was found.
After saying he was subpoenaed and testifying only because he has immunity from prosecution, Harvey acknowledged being a cocaine user before and during his season with the Angels in 2019. The former New York Mets’ star said he tried oxycodone provided by Skaggs during his season with the Angels and also provided drugs to Skaggs.
Morin and Cron testified to longer periods of getting oxycodone from Kay, while Bedrosian said he received three or four pills once and gave the rest back after taking one and not liking the way it made him feel.
Of the four players, only Cron is on a major league roster (Colorado Rockies). The others are free agents; Harvey, who played last year for the Orioles, said he believes his testimony will threaten his career. Andrew Heaney, one of Skaggs’ closest friends with the Angels and now under contract with the rival Los Angeles Dodgers, was the first government witness last week.
Skaggs, 27, was found dead July 1, 2019, the day after the team had traveled from Los Angeles and before the start of a series against the Rangers. A coroner’s report said Skaggs had choked to death on his vomit, and a toxic mix of alcohol, fentanyl and oxycodone were in his system.
Kay served as the team’s public relations contact on many trips, and the trip to Texas was his first since returning from rehab. Kay was placed on leave shortly after Skaggs’ death and never returned to the team.
Prosecutors are trying to establish that Kay was the only one who could have provided the drugs that led to Skaggs’ death, and that the drugs were delivered after the team arrived in Texas. The defense counters that Skaggs had multiple suppliers, and that the last time Kay gave him drugs was before the team left.
Harvey said Skaggs had another source but didn’t get many drugs from that source. Harvey said he had his own drug supplier on the East Coast, and said he got oxycodone for Skaggs from that supplier.
The defense asked Harvey and Morin if they were aware of the danger of mixing alcohol and oxycodone, and they said they were. Defense attorney Michael Molfetta asked Harvey if he ever asked Skaggs to be careful.
“Looking back, I wish I had,” Harvey said. “In baseball you do everything you can to stay on the field. At the time I felt as a teammate I was just helping him get through whatever he needed to get through.”
Harvey said he found out Skaggs had died when he woke up July 1 and threw away the remaining oxycodone pills he had, even before knowing anything about the cause of death.
“I wanted absolutely nothing to do with that anymore, and I was very scared,” said Harvey, who also said oxycodone and Tylenol use was common in the major leagues.
Cron said he received pills from Kay while with the Angels in 2017 and was still getting them from him after going to Tampa Bay in 2018. He said Kay was his only supplier.
Carli Skaggs said she went to the Angels’ home game against Oakland before the team left for Texas and saw Skaggs in the family room before the players boarded a bus for the airport. The last text she received, “miss you babe,” was sent just after midnight Texas time, or 10 p.m. in California.
Carli Skaggs said she didn’t know the extent of her husband’s drug use and would have tried to do more to prevent it had she known.
LABOR TALKS: Neither side made any public statement this week to acknowledge the obvious: Spring training is failing to start on schedule for the first time since 1995, victim of a lockout that stretches into its 77th day Wednesday as players and management squabble over how to apportion an industry with $10 billion annual revenue.
So instead of debating RBI and ERAs, Major League Baseball has been reduced to disputing CBTs and AAVs.
Pitchers and catchers won’t be reporting to camp as scheduled, but MLB doesn’t plan to announce a disruption to spring training until Feb. 26 exhibition openers can’t be played.
If talks stretch into March – all signs are they will– season openers are likely to be pushed back.
“I am an optimist and I believe we will have an agreement in time to play our regular schedule,” baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said at a news conference last Thursday. “I see missing games as a disastrous outcome for this industry, and we’re committed to making an agreement in an effort to avoid that.”
Those were Manfred’s first comments to media since Dec. 2, the day baseball’s ninth work stoppage began, its first since 1995.
Pace of bargaining has been even slower than pace of games.
There have been just five negotiating sessions on core economics since the lockout started: a Zoom gathering on Jan. 13 followed by in-person meetings on Jan. 24-25 and Feb. 1 and 12. Reliever Andrew Miller has been the only player to attend in person and Rockies CEO Dick Montfort the only owner.
Players have demanded significant change, angered that payrolls were $4.05 billion last year, down 4.6% from their record high of just under $4.25 billion in 2017, the first year of the just-expired labor contract.
The union has asked for salary arbitration eligibility to be expanded to two years of major league service, its level from 1974-86, proposed a decrease in revenue sharing and wants new methods for top young players to be credited with additional service time, which the union says would address its allegations of service time manipulation.
Management has said it won’t consider cutting revenue sharing or expanding arbitration. The sides are far apart on minimum salaries, the amount of a proposed bonus pool for young stars, and luxury tax thresholds and rates.
“The league was not required to declare a lockout,” union head Tony Clark said on Dec. 2 in his only comments to media since the lockout began. “Players consider it unnecessary and provocative. This lockout won’t pressure or intimate players into a deal that they don’t believe is fair.”
Manfred said the lockout was “defensive,” citing the union’s decision to strike late in the 1994 season, which led to a 7 1/2-month stoppage and the first canceled World Series in 90 years.
“If you play without an agreement, you’re vulnerable to a strike at any point in time,” he said. “What happened in 1994 is the MLBPA picked August, when we were most vulnerable because of the proximity of the large revenue dollars associated with the postseason. We wanted to take that option away and try to force the parties to deal with the issues and get an agreement now, which is what we continue to believe is best for the fans.”
Both sides seem to believe the other won’t make significant moves until the verge of Opening Day being threatened. Manfred said last week that perhaps four weeks of training would be needed, with additional time for ratification and players to travel to camps.
When players were locked out in 1990, the sides said a minimum three weeks of training were needed ahead of April 2 openers. When March 12 passed without an agreement, MLB said it would wait four additional days before making any announcement. Owners made a new proposal on March 16, leading to weekend negotiations and the announcement of an agreement at 1:18 a.m. on March 19.
Training camps opened March 20, exhibition games began March 26 and Opening Day was pushed back a week to April 9. After announcing on the night of the agreement that a 158-game schedule was contemplated, the sides struck a deal on March 22 to extend the end of the regular season by three days and have each team play a full 162.
In the meantime, these negotiations appear to be a game of chicken.
“The issues that the players are interested in engaging on has been the same leading up to bargaining, throughout bargaining and will continue to be the same moving forward,” Clark said on the day the lockout began. “A fair contract that maintains a market system and addresses the competitive integrity issues that we’ve highlighted for some time.”
NATIONALS: Longtime Washington Nationals star Ryan Zimmerman announced his retirement, ending a decorated career in which he became the franchise leader in many major categories and boosted the team to its only World Series championship.
Now 37, Zimmerman made it official in a public letter addressed to “Dear D.C.”
“When we first met I was a 20-year-old kid fresh out of the University of Virginia,” he wrote. “I had no idea how unbelievable the next 17 years of my life were going to be.”
Zimmerman was the first player drafted by the Nationals, picked fourth overall in June 2005 during their first season after moving from Montreal to Washington. He made his major league debut that September and hit .397 in 20 games, giving a glimpse of what was to come.
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