Five months after Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs was found dead in 2019 with a toxic mix of alcohol, fentanyl and oxycodone in his body, Major League Baseball and the players association amended their Joint Drug Agreement to begin testing for opioids. In the two seasons of such testing, covering more than 12,000 tests, there have been no opioid-related violations, according to a source familiar with those results.
When the union agreed to testing in December 2019, executive director Tony Clark said the scope of opioid use by players was “difficult to gauge” and explained that the union decided there “wasn’t necessarily a need to take a census as much as there was taking a leadership role in the conversation.”
Violations include only non-prescribed use of opioids. The illegal use of opioids by ballplayers gained national attention this week with explosive admissions under oath by several former Angels teammates describing how easily opioids passed among them and Angels employee Eric Kay in the clubhouse before the testing was established. Matt Harvey, C.J. Cron, Mike Morin, Cam Bedrosian and Blake Parker testified that Kay, the team’s former communications director, provided them with oxycodone pills dating to late 2016 and up to Skaggs’s death on July 1, 2019.
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Among the details of their testimony: Cron said he received pills at least eight times from Kay, who he said would place them in his locker or shoe; Morin said he received as many as 20 pills among five or six transactions with Kay; and Harvey testified he used the drugs in the dugout and Skaggs snorted them in a clubhouse bathroom stall.
Kay is charged with felony counts of distributing counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl that led to Skaggs’s death and conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute. He has pleaded not guilty.
In court Tuesday, a prosecutor for the government asked Harvey whether it was common for players to use oxycodone and Tylenol. Harvey replied, “Yes.” Harvey said he considered giving opioids to Skaggs as a way of “being a good teammate” to help his fellow pitcher deal with pain. Skaggs’s mother, Debbie Hetman, testified that her son first disclosed to her a problem with Percocet in 2013, when he was 21.
Cron played for the Angels from 2014 through ’17. But when he joined Tampa Bay in ’18, he testified, he continued to use Kay as his supplier. He said in May of that year, when the Rays played at Anaheim, he contacted Skaggs via text to arrange for Kay to supply him with the drugs. He said Skaggs did contact Kay, who provided the drugs to Cron.
One veteran high-ranking club executive said, “Opioid abuse has never been an issue for us, at least anything that I have been aware of. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t around, if only because of how pervasive it is in society. But that situation [with the Angels] strikes me as isolated.”
Said one prominent agent, “I’m around players all the time, and I don’t know [the extent]. I haven’t seen it. I tell my players pain is your body’s way of telling you something is wrong. Taking something to mask pain invites more serious injury.”
The changes to the JDA in December 2019 added opioids to the classification of “drugs of abuse.” The changes allowed MLB to test for opioids, fentanyl, cocaine and synthetic tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Violations are nondisciplinary. Players who test positive are referred to a treatment board established by the agreement. The board is made up of medical professionals who specialize in substance abuse and representatives from both the commissioner’s office and the MLBPA.
At the time of those changes, marijuana was removed from the list of “drugs of abuse.” Marijuana-related issues are treated the same as those involving alcohol, which generally means mandatory evaluation, voluntary treatment and no suspensions.
The players association agreed to steroid testing with penalties only after anonymous survey testing in 2003 defined the problem. It agreed to a ban on amphetamines in ’05 as part of strengthening the penalties against steroids. Blood tests for human growth hormone began in ’12.
As part of the collective bargaining agreement, the JDA has not been applicable since Dec. 2, when owners imposed a lockout upon the expiration of the CBA. All testing is suspended during the lockout.
