Former Angels Staffer Stands Trial for Death of Pitcher Tyler Skaggs

ESPN Daily

ESPN

Sports

4.6 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 17 February 2022

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When Angels’ pitcher Tyler Skaggs was found dead in his hotel room in July of 2019, it sent shock waves across baseball. There was an outpouring of grief and sorrow for the loss of a promising young player, teammate, and husband at just 27 years old. But the shock of Skaggs’ death was only compounded when Eric Kay, who had been the Angels’ own director of communications, was arrested and accused of supplying the opioids that lead to Skaggs’ death. Now, more than two years later, Kay is on trial in federal court, and could face upwards of 20 years in prison if convicted. The trial has also seen testimony from a number of Skaggs’ former teammates, including former Mets’ ace Matt Harvey, who also acknowledged that he received drugs from Kay. ESPN investigative reporter TJ Quinn joins us from the site of the trial in Fort Worth, Texas to explain what Eric Kay, and baseball at large, is facing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	ESPN Daily is presented by supercuts, the smarter, easier way to get a haircut.
0:06.7	It's not just any haircut, it's supercuts.
0:12.0	T.J. Quinn, we're here today to talk about a tragedy that shook the entire sport of baseball,
0:17.7	but it's one that I think a lot of people have kind of forgotten about since it
0:22.2	happened. So I want to start here at the very beginning. It was just about two and a half years ago,
0:28.1	June 30th, 2019. The Los Angeles Angels are in Texas visiting the Rangers. And what happened?
0:35.0	The Angels land. They're in a great mood. Everybody's got a cowboy outfit. They all got
0:40.5	new hats and boots and belt buckles. It was a festive flight. They land. They head to the hotel,
0:47.4	the Hilton and South Lake, where they had been many times before. And as people headed up to their rooms,
0:54.0	Tyler Skaggs, a 27-year-old left-handed
0:56.7	starter, headed up to his room.
1:02.9	At some point, Skaggs was texting with the team's communications director, a guy named Eric K.
1:14.6	And he says to Eric K, I want you to come up to my room.
1:19.6	At some point that night, Eric Kay went up to his room.
1:23.6	Everything else that happened is in dispute. But what we do know is that at some point,
1:25.6	Tyler Skaggs lost consciousness.
1:29.3	He fell face first on his bed.
1:32.4	And then the next morning, his wife, Carly, is wondering why she hasn't heard back from him.
1:39.8	Finally, the team decides they've got to do a welfare check.
1:45.0	They opened the door, and there is Tyler Skaggs with no shirt on, still with the jeans and the cowboy boots he had, face down.
1:54.2	In his own vomit and blood, he'd been dead for some time.
1:58.4	The autopsy states that the young Los Angeles Angels pitcher
	...

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