Free-agent pitcher Matt Harvey and three other former Los Angeles Angels testified Thursday that an ex-team employee provided them with opioids.
Pitchers Harvey, Mike Morin and Cam Bedrosian and first baseman C.J. Cron all said they received the pills from Eric Kay, the Angels’ former communications director who allegedly provided the drugs that contributed to the death of pitcher Tyler Skaggs.
Kay is on trial in federal court in Fort Worth, Texas, charged with drug distribution and conspiracy. Skaggs was found dead in a Texas hotel room on July 1, 2019, as the Angels were in the area to play the Rangers. Skaggs was 27.
The autopsy revealed Skaggs died of asphyxia and had oxycodone, fentanyl and alcohol found in his system.
The players testified that Kay was their source of oxycodone.
ESPN investigative reporter T.J. Quinn shared the testimony via social media from the courtroom.
Harvey was granted immunity for his testimony, and he admitted on the stand to using cocaine in the early years of his career — an admission he said he recognized could threaten his future in the game.
He said he shared Percocet pills — a mix of oxycodone and acetaminophen — with Skaggs during the 2019 season, but that, otherwise, he believed Skaggs got them from Kay.
Harvey said he used the opioids in both the clubhouse and dugout. Skaggs, he said, told Harvey that he crushed the pills on the toilet paper dispenser in the clubhouse bathroom and snorted them.
Harvey didn’t accompany the team to Texas because of an injury, but he recounted how he had left a pill supplied by Kay in his locker in the Anaheim clubhouse before the team departed for the road trip. After Skaggs’ death, he retrieved it and disposed of it.
Harvey testified that oxycodone was prevalent among major leaguers then.
“In baseball you do everything you can to stay on the field,” he said.
Harvey pitched for the Baltimore Orioles last season and is a free agent. Bedrosian spent 2021 with three teams, most recently Philadelphia Phillies, and Cron was with the Colorado Rockies. Morin did not play last season.
Terry Collins, who managed Harvey from 2012-17 with the New York Mets, acknowledged that he had off-field concerns about the pitcher.
Was Collins surprised to hear Harvey discuss his cocaine use in court on Tuesday?
“The answer is, probably not,” Collins told the New York Post. “There was a testing program going on throughout Major League Baseball. We weren’t allowed to do any of our own stuff. There were accusations that were being thrown around the clubhouse, for sure, but I had no proof of it at all. I can just tell you what guys were saying.
“There was a time I addressed an off-the-field issue with one of the other guys on the team and his statement was, ‘Well, I’m not doing what Matt Harvey is doing.’ I said, ‘This isn’t about Matt Harvey, this is about you.’ I tried to get off that subject as fast as I could. Was there knowledge in the clubhouse? Without question.”
At the time, MLB did not test players for “drugs of abuse” such as cocaine without reasonable cause. Since Skaggs’ death, the testing program has changed.
Collins told the Post that he tried to help Harvey without asking about any specific drugs.
“Was there a time someone said, ‘Are you on something,’ without naming anything,” Collins said. “That was probably brought up. But pretty much you addressed it as, ‘Look, you have got to clean up your off-the-field situation.’ That was it.”
Harvey’s behavior could be erratic, Collins claimed, and the team had its mental skills coach counsel him.
“Certainly, that was addressed,” Collins said. “Again, it’s Matt, and one time he talked about, ‘I should just kill myself.’ … You try to deal with it the best you can. We certainly tried to get him help, get him some assistance.”