EX-ANGELS EMPLOYEE INDICTED IN DEATH OF SKAGGS
A federal grand jury indicted a former Los Angeles Angels employee on drug charges for allegedly providing Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs with the drugs that caused his overdose death.
Eric Prescott Kay was charged Thursday with drug distribution and drug conspiracy in Skaggs’ overdose death, according to the indictment in Fort Worth, Texas. The charges carry a maximum of a life sentence and 20 years in prison, respectively.
Kay remained free on his own recognizance. A message seeking comment from Kay’s attorney, Reagan Wynn, was not immediately returned.
Skaggs, 27, was found dead in his suburban Dallas hotel room on July 1, 2019, before the start of what was supposed to be a four-game series against the Texas
Rangers. The first game was postponed.
A coroner’s report said Skaggs had choked to death on his vomit with a toxic mix of alcohol and the drugs fentanyl and oxycodone in his system, which Kay was accused of providing.
Kay was the Angels’ director of communications, and he served as their public relations contact on many road trips. He was placed on leave shortly after Skaggs’ death, and he never returned to the team.
Team officials said they had not been aware that Skaggs was an opioids user and didn’t know any employees were providing drugs to players.
Ratings
The Tampa Bay Rays and New York Yankees drew the five-most watched games of the Division Series, boosted by prime-time start times.
Tampa Bay’s 2-1 win in Game 5 on Oct. 9 was the most-watched game of the round, averaging 3,723,000 viewers on TBS, the network said Friday.
Among the other three
series, the most-viewed game was the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 6-5 win over the Padres in Game 2, which averaged 1,655,000 viewers on FS1
While ratings were down from last year, when the Yankees-Twins series averaged 2.66 million on FS1, it’s hard to compare due to the pandemic, the switch to neutral sites this year and the national election. Primetime games on Oct. 6 and 9 were opposite the fourth and fifth games of the NBA Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and Miami, and Oct. 7 competed with the vice presidential debate.
Two of the three leastviewed games this year were on the MLB Network; Game 3 between the Dodgers and Padres on Oct. 8 (1,169,000) and Game 2 between Miami and Atlanta, which had a 2:08 p.m. EDT start (671,000).
The nine AL telecasts totaled 25.5 million on TBS, including the five mostwatched games of the round.
Los Angeles’ opening win over San Diego on Oct. 6 was seen by 1,504,000 on FS1, the highest-rated Padres game in San Diego since 2006.
Testing
Major League Baseball’s postseason bubble appears to be working as a defense against the novel coronavirus.
MLB players extended their streak of consecutive days with no new COVID-19 tests to 47 through Thursday.
Players did not have positive tests in 55 of the previous 56 days, the commissioner’s office said.
There were no positive tests among 5,026 samples samples collected in the week.
MLB has collected 169,143 samples overall, of which 91 have been positive, or 0.05 percent.
Fifty-seven of 91 positives have been players, and 21 of the 30 teams have had a person covered by the monitoring test positive.