SANTA ANA, Calif. -- A former Los Angeles Angels teammate of deceased pitcher Tyler Skaggs testified Tuesday that the two players and the team employee who provided them with illicit pills were secretive about their drug use, and that the team was not responsible for what they did.
Former pitcher Mike Morin told jurors in the Skaggs family's wrongful death case against the team that during the 2017 season, he believed only he, Skaggs and Eric Kay, the then-Angels communications employee who provided them with pills, knew about the illicit drugs.
Morin said he didn't tell his wife or his family, and he testified he knew what he was doing was illegal. He also testified to how he thought Skaggs felt.
"I think that he wanted to not have a bunch of people know what he was doing," Morin said. "That's it."
Morin was asked three versions of the same question: Does he believe Skaggs was responsible for his decision to drink alcohol and chop up and snort opioids on the night he died in a Texas hotel?
"I think that he is responsible for his actions," Morin said after a long pause.
The statement supports a critical point for the Angels, who have contended it was reckless decisions by Skaggs that led to his death from an accidental drug overdose in 2019. The Angels have maintained they were not responsible for Skaggs' death and that they were not aware of Skaggs' drug problems.
The Angels have said they did not know Kay distributed drugs to Skaggs and other players. The Skaggs family lawyers allege the Angels put Skaggs in harm's way because they knew about Kay's drug usage and continued to employ him.
Skaggs connected Morin with Kay in 2017 after Morin suffered an injury. Before this, Morin said he would not have anticipated Kay provided illicit pills to players. Kay is serving a 22-year prison term after his conviction in 2022 for providing Skaggs with the fatal fentanyl-laced oxycodone pill. During his criminal trial, multiple players testified to receiving pills from Kay.
"I had been on the team for multiple years," Morin said. "I had no idea Eric Kay was doing what he was doing."
Morin testified Kay provided him and Skaggs with blue, 30-milligram oxycodone pills they called "blue boys," and how there were times he and Skaggs crushed up a pill and snorted it on a toilet paper dispenser in the clubhouse bathroom, as he once did with Pixy Stix candy in high school French class. Defense attorneys showed multiple sets of text messages between Morin and Skaggs in which the two discussed their pill usage.
Morin said pill distribution was typically "extremely discreet." Morin left money in the cubby space in his locker. Kay came and took the money, dropping the pills in the same cubby space. He said during the 2017 season, he received pain pills from Kay five to eight times.
Once, though, he said he waited with Kay outside the player's parking lot for someone to deliver the pills. He didn't feel comfortable in the situation, so he left. Morin, though, said he never questioned how Kay received the illicit pills. He thought Kay was obtaining pharmacy quality medications.
"I was completely unaware in a very naïve way that a prescription pill could be tainted with," Morin said. "So I assumed that any pill we were going to be getting wouldn't be fatal."
Morin emotionally explained the pressures professional players feel to stay in the major leagues and how it is difficult for others who aren't in clubhouses to understand "the immense highs and immense lows" that come with it.
He said he would tell young players about his experience and how he handled his injury was not the correct way to go.
"I am 100 percent embarrassed to sit here and say this is what I did," Morin said. "That is my own burden."
Morin's testimony came a day after Skaggs' mother, Debbie Hetman, told jurors she did not make anyone at the Angels aware of her son's Percocet addiction in 2013. She did say she would have told the Angels had they asked her about it.
During her continuing testimony Tuesday, defense attorneys questioned Hetman on parts of her earlier sworn testimony, in which she said she didn't believe her son had a Percocet addiction in 2013.
"I just didn't use the word addiction," Hetman said of her deposition testimony. "You can use whatever word you want. Problem, issue, addiction, it's all the same."
The trial continues Wednesday with testimony from expert compensation witnesses who are expected to explain how much Skaggs could have earned for the remainder of his career.