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Angels employee details team's knowledge of Tyler Skaggs' drug use to DEA


Chuck

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47 minutes ago, Jay said:

It's clear at this point, Skaggs liked to get high.

We know about the oxy and alcohol, because that's what they found in his system.

Who knows what other stuff he was into.

It's Skaggs' fault that he died, nobody else's.

The was an addict.  The question is how did he become an addict.  I have had three major surgeries in my lifetime.  I was on oxycodone all three times.   The first time was in 2000.  They gave me morphine or vicodin every time I asked.  My wife joked about how I raised a 20,000 pharmaceutical bill.  They never told me about possible addiction.  

I can see a scenario were Skaggs got addicted and went to black market to get his fix.

 

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12 minutes ago, Stradling said:

So people who are worried about the Angels getting in some sort of legal trouble or trouble from the league, is it because Kay is an employee of the team and was getting drugs for the player?  Or is it because he said he told Mead and someone else about Skaggs drug problem?   Which one presents the legal or league problem?   Unless Kay texted or emailed about the problem it’s going to be tough to prove.  As for him being an employee of the team, maybe because in most cooperations the title of Director means something.  However in this line of work I doubt it does when compared to a player. 

Kay held a pretty important position with the Angels for a long period of time. So the answer is all of the above. Could it be that many in the organization were in the know but chose to ignore it because we were so thin on pitching that they just let him be. He was actually pitching pretty well towards the end. 

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3 minutes ago, RBM said:

I don't do pills but I know this from trying to help others - They take them in the morning and the hangover goes away. They take them in the evening and their drinking can ascend to new heights. After awhile they take them to just get back to a functioning level.

That makes sense.  Thank you.

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8 hours ago, RBM said:

Yes, but it is how they start. Start to slide. Start to hide. Start to avoid.

I have learned we can't place a postage stamp on addiction based on our own personal experience. It has no demographics. And it's not just about "desire", "willingness" and "effort".

We can't cure cancer with those three things.

I wish you much peace with your family's struggle.

I think you have to look at it on a spectrum. There are those people for which it is entirely a mental struggle that they have no power over, and then there are those who are almost entirely in control but still take that risk. For the later group it is very much about recognizing you have a problem and having the desire to put in the effort to get better.

I only have this thread to go on but for Tyler to be a partier and a pill popper in high school who has managed to keep his problem mostly under wraps for the better part of a decade I think he also probably fits more into the latter group. 

My take is this was a tragic accident that didn't have to happen if only Tyler or those around him were willing to get him to admit he had a problem and to seek help.

And thank you for the kind words.

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28 minutes ago, stormngt said:

That's what I dont get.  How does opioids help make your party.  All I wanted to do was sleep when I took mine.

Im not sure it's been established that he had an opioid dependency, only that it is what killed him. It's possible he was inexperienced with it, or that he didn't know what he had. He obviously took far more than he had planned since the toxicology report said it was a lethal dose.

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8 minutes ago, RBM said:

I don't think he was at a place yet where an intervention was in order. He was still functioning at a high level and had them "fooled".

I think it's the Fentanyl that did him in. These days drug users don't always know what they are taking. It's a tragedy unfolding across America every night.

This is a drug many times more powerful than morphine, and the smallest quantity can be deadly. It has killed many thousands of young people across the country. The number is staggering.  

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Just now, RBM said:

I don't think he was at a place yet where an intervention was in order. He was still functioning at a high level and had them "fooled".

I think it's the Fentanyl that did him in. These days drug users don't always know what they are taking. It's a tragedy unfolding across America every night.

Yeah I think this is a pretty accurate assessment. I'm sure he was doing everything he could to keep his problem hidden. Things tend to get really bad before anyone around them can actually see the problem, and it's really easy to write off the warning signs.

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1 hour ago, True Grich said:

Kay is on paid leave?

Angels have a zero tolerance policy?

Do these things add up?

The Angels have to be weary of any future wrongful termination claims. Drug addiction can be a “disability” for purposes of a claimed medical disability. Even if the employee doesn’t inform the employer of the disability, he can claim that the Angels knew or should have known (I’d put that in all caps if I knew how) that the employee had the disability. Do you see how the employee is stating things to show the Angels “should have known” about the employee’s addiction? This is by design, amigos.

If the Angels terminate the employee they open themselves up to a wrongful termination/disability discrimination claim under California state law and federal law (ADA). California law essentially mirrors the federal law but also, California state courts are more employee-friendly then other states so the Angels have to really go by the book on this one or they risk a lawsuit.

This reminds me of the Miami Vice episode “Fruit of the Poison Tree.”

 

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I think 'partying' ie doing recreational drugs is so commonplace within pro sports that there is a general numbness to it.  People know it's going on but don't pay attention to what's actually going on with any individual player.  There is no one monitoring when that night out of doing some stuff turns into the next phase of actual addiction or escalation to needing it all the time.  

My guess is that if every org suddenly decided to act on everything they heard about every player, then about half the guys in mlb would be subject to some sort of treatment process.  

The line has become so blurred because of a certain culture that no one knows where to draw it.  

If people thought Skaggs like to 'party', that's one thing.  If people thought he was regularly abusing fentanyl then they might have thought to intervene.  

But who's job is it to pay close enough attention in order to make that determination?  

I'm not sure anyone on any team is willing to take that sort of responsibility.  

So someone has to die and there has to an uncovering of some illegal process that goes beyond what people thought it was in order for there to be a wake up call.  

Could you imagine someone being a whistle blower in mlb and naming all those that use illegal drugs?  I think that list would be pretty long.  

When I was in med school, there were plenty of rumors of tons of drug use.  I had a close nit group of people that study together and we didn't partake in any of that, but there were several other groups of people that we interacted with regularly where it was suspected that they did.  People we considered friends but not to the extent that we knew everything about them.  We spent tons of time together.  There was plenty of talk about these other groups doing stuff to keep them awake so they could study more or taking other stuff to help them sleep when it was time.  It got real when one of those guys tried to write himself a script for opiods, got busted, and offed himself.   He lived next door to me and we would study together a fair amount.  I had no idea of what was really going on with him.  

Sometimes it's not that easy to tell and most are reluctant to run with some sort of unfounded rumor or even mild suspicion.  When things come out after the fact, a lot of it seems obvious, but in real time, it's just not.  

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1 hour ago, nate said:

I am not sure about the team having legal problems unless they can prove some sort of enterprise level drug conspiracy.

The league on the other hand will almost certainly have to levy some serious punishment.  At the very least some huge fines but I wouldn't be surprised if there are also draft pick losses as well.

how do your two statements coexist? how can the league heavily punish the angels if there's no proof that there was a systemic responsibility? i'm not going to get caught up in the emotions of this story, but i can tell you as a person that has raised an opiod addict, it certainly wasn't my fault. people make choices and the grip of opiod addiction is firm.

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1 minute ago, ukyah said:

how do your two statements coexist? how can the league heavily punish the angels if there's no proof that there was a systemic responsibility? i'm not going to get caught up in the emotions of this story, but i can tell you as a person that has raised an opiod addict, it certainly wasn't my fault. people make choices and the grip of opiod addiction is firm.

Individual criminals != criminal organization

Eric Kay will almost certainly face criminal charges, and the Angels could face civil charges like wrongful death.

The Angels as an organization will almost certainly not face criminal charges though.

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3 minutes ago, nate said:

Individual criminals != criminal organization

Eric Kay will almost certainly face criminal charges, and the Angels could face civil charges like wrongful death.

The Angels as an organization will almost certainly not face criminal charges though.

and your comment about league punishment?

 

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2 minutes ago, ukyah said:

and your comment about league punishment?

If history is any indication it's likely the Angels avoid any league punishment.   

The biggest example of widespread drug usage remains the Pittsburgh Pirates 1985 cocaine scandal and they too had a team employed involed.... hell, the guy that wore the parrot mascot uniform was getting players coke.  The team walked away scot free.  Ditto the Dodgers when they had their guys doing lines in the bullpen. 

My guess is the team will continue to circle it's wagons, deny any knowledge, and barring any real evidence mostly suffer from a PR standpoint.  One thing that will likely help them along is how sketchy some of the info is right now.  This is also the team that was willing to eat 70 mil on Hamilton, and how much on GMJ?   Both players were essentially abandoned by ownership. 

If anything the league likely wants to move past it as quickly as possible to avoid greater scrutiny on the rest of It's teams, which is shitty.

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32 minutes ago, RBM said:

Absolutely. All MLB players know more of the reality but my comment was not about his knowledge of the real world. It's about the circus coming to town and whether or not Cole wants to deal with it.

Will Cole want to deal with the BS if Debbie Skaggs plays this out? Will she let this go away or will she continue to punch the clouds as she barks at the moon? I hope she realizes she will become the baseball equivalent of Marv Marinovich if she continues her current path.

you keep mentioning this marinovich angle, and that's a bunch of bullshit. putting this on the mom is reprehensible.

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1 hour ago, fan_since79 said:

If being addicted to the punishment inflicted upon me as a fan of this frustrating team year in and year out is a drug, I plead guilty.

I'm hoping we start winning someday so I feel happy again.

Yep masochism is one hell of a drug

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