MLB had awful week off field in Texas, negotiations
Surely, there have been worse weeks in Major League Baseball history, but considering the tragic, sordid, scandalous and infuriating events that just unfolded, it could have a prominent place on baseball’s Mount Rushmore of horrific weeks.
Let’s see, we had a drug trial that resurrected memories of the infamous Pittsburgh one in the 1980s.
Former Mets star Matt Harvey was one of five players on the Angels who admitted to using opioids, not only privately but in the clubhouse and even in the dugout.
Harvey, who also admitted to cocaine use during his days with the Mets, faces a potential suspension from MLB for distributing the opioids – if he decides to continue his playing career.
The sixth Angels player was unable to testify in the trial.
Tyler Skaggs died on July 1, 2019.
The man responsible for the death, the jury determined, was former Angels media relations manager Eric Kay. He was found guilty of providing the fentanyllaced pill that killed Skaggs and he immediately was placed in custody.
He will be sentenced on June 28, where he’ll be in federal prison from 20 years to life.
The Angels now will be on center stage with the family of Skaggs filing wrongful death suits in California and Texas.
“The trial showed Eric Kay’s drug trafficking was known to numerous people in the Angels organization, and it resulted in the tragic and unnecessary death of one of their most popular players,” attorney Rusty Hardin said in a statement.
“We have no doubt that the Angels knew what Eric Kay was doing, and the team is morally and legally responsible for his conduct. In the upcoming civil
cases, we are looking forward to holding the team accountable.”
Here are some other things that happened this past week in the baseball world:
h The parents of former Twins prospect Ryan Costello filed a lawsuit against the doctor on the Minnesota team’s medical staff for not informing their son that he had a heart abnormality.
“If his (condition) had been appropriately diagnosed and treated,” the suit states, “he would be alive today.”
Costello was found dead in his New Zealand hotel room on Nov. 18, 2019.
h A Chicago ticket broker was sentenced to 1 1⁄2 years in prison
for conspiring with two White Sox employees to illegally sell about 34,000 fraudulent complimentary game tickets on StubHub, earning $868,369.
Bruce Lee, 35, was convicted by a jury last year of wire fraud. He was ordered to pay the White Sox $74,650 in restitution while forfeiting $455,229 to the government.
The two White Sox employees who were part of the scheme who pleaded guilty in the scheme, James Costello and William O’Neil, cooperated with the investigation and have yet to be sentenced.
h MLB asked in its comprehensive 130-page proposal to the union for the right to slash the minor leagues from 180 players to 150 per team, further infuriating the players.
h In only their second negotiating meeting in 16 days, the Major League Baseball Players Association ripped MLB’s latest proposal.
Five days later, MLB was infuriated by the union’s counterproposal, leaving the negotiating session after 15 minutes.
h MLB announced that the first week of spring training games were officially canceled until at least March 5.
Starting this week in Florida, MLB negotiators and the union are huddled for a week trying to determine whether they can reach an agreement by Feb. 28 to preserve the start of the regular season.
There were at least two owners on hand, Dick Monfort of the Rockies and Ron Fowler of the Padres, while the union was expecting several dozen players to attend the meetings.
The union, of course, argues that the season could easily start on time. All MLB has to do is lift the lockout.
MLB argues that it would gladly lift the lockout if the players promise not to go on strike during the season or postseason.
That’s not happening. The nightmare of 1994-95 is still fresh in MLB’s memory bank.
They tried playing without an agreement in 1994, the players went on strike in August, the World Series was canceled, and it took the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa home run race in 1998 before baseball could recover.
The two sides realize they are dangerously playing with fire again.
If MLB tries to dock players’ pay for a shortened season, the union could simply refuse to have an expanded playoff system, stripping $100 million of potential revenue for the owners.
Really, the most important treacherous risk to a delay is a further erosion to their fan base. Attendance has declined each of the past four years. TV ratings have plummeted. Too many games are painfully dull.
So, go ahead, you want to take the chance of losing baseball fans forever?
More on the Kay sentencing
While Kay will now be imprisoned for his role in Skaggs’ death, Maritza Perez, the director of National Affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, argues that the sentencing is grossly unfair.
It wasn’t as if Kay was a drug pin or trafficker, but a man with a drug problem himself.
The sentencing, she said, is counterproductive.
“We support drug policy,” she told USA TODAY Sports, “we do not support criminalization. We’re seeing more and more people charged with murder and homicide providing a substance that proved to be fatal.
“People supplying those drugs don’t know it’s fatal. We’re criminalizing without engaging science or evidence.”
The Drug Policy Alliance is opening overdose prevention centers and providing testing strips to determine whether any drug is laced with fentanyl.
“We need to do something,” Perez said, “instead of just throwing people in jail. They need our help.”
There were 10 million who illegally used prescription opioids in 2019, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.