2019 saw the tragic death of a young man with an elegant fastball and a dark secret. When it was announced that Tyler Skaggs, a pitcher for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, was found dead, the official statement was “cause of death unknown”. Generally speaking, healthy 28-year-olds don’t drop dead, certainly not without a reason. That being said, the mystery wasn’t much of a mystery at all. It was a family living in shame about their son’s poor mental health and addiction, a team scrambling to manage the PR implications, and the institution of MLB sitting on its hands after washing them like Pontus Pilate.
After kicking the can down the road numerous times, it became clear that a cause of death would have to be released. To the shock of nobody, Tyler Skaggs overdosed and died alone in a hotel room. What happened next was the the tawdry piece of gossip that fueled the palace intrigue of “what exactly is going on here?”
Skaggs hookup for his illicit drug use wasn’t a dark alley with nefarious characters– it was the communications director for the Angeles, Eric Kay. Two years out, it seems that Kay was running a side hustle, keeping not just Skaggs supplied with Oxy but other MLB players as well. This is where the secrets of a dysfunctional family vest, then fester, ending up like a dead cat beneath the house with most the relatives muttering “huh? I don’t smell anything”.
Where we stand currently, the sediment of lies has the Angels denying subpoenas to produce information for the prosecution. That’s seems odd, given their story has been “one bad actor” in an organization as wholesome as a Chevy commercial. So what’s really happening here?
There is no question that Eric Kay should be held to account for his actions. There are laws about the sale and distribution of narcotics. Whatever Kay’s motivation was, his actions produced severe consequences. What is the structural issues around this death? As hard as the Angels may to try and distance themselves, they are culpable, MLB right alongside them. While Kay should pay a steep price, there is an opportunity here that the team, the league, and the fans are missing.
Baseball is as American as guns, junk food, and pick up trucks. The marketing is clear: it’s a family event, take your kids on a summer day for a fun afternoon. Most kids have some kind of exposure to being a player at some level. Not all of them take to it but “MLB player” is a very common answer to the query “what do you want to be when you grow up?”.
Image matters when it comes to bottom-line finances and the last thing MLB needs is another scandal after the steroid use debacle that nearly killed baseball and took years of recovery. Is that a reason to whistle in the woods while young men limp along with mental health issues? No, it’s not, and baseball could certainly use this tragedy to implement reforms that would greatly reduce the numbers of these tragic events in the future. They won’t, but they could.
For some reason, shame and stigma drive the mental health bus in America. While polling is consistent that Americans widely believe addiction is a treatable illness, our institutions don’t use that as the North Star for drafting policy. We’re stuck in the mud of identifying scapegoats, spinning our wheels in an attempt to control supply, and avoiding what would work because we fear looking like we have no tolerance for drug use. Tyler Skaggs was an elite athlete. No expense or intervention was sparred in taking care of his talent. If he had said “my elbow feels funny” to a trainer, that statement would have set the wheels in motion for everything from icing, to physical therapy, to MRIs by top practitioners. What if he said “I feel off, I’m not sleeping”? What systems are in place for dealing with emotional and mental health? Not much, if any at all.
Mental health is health. “In Concordium mentos e corpus”. That’s Latin for “in tune with mind and body”. Our physical health is inextricably entwined with our emotional health. What if the Angels, what if MLB, required “twice yearly mental health screenings” as part of the health protocol for all players? Would Tyler Skaggs be dead? He might, but he might not. A mental health practitioner may have identified a young man with a substance misuse issue that coexisted with anxiety and depression. We’ll never know in Tyler’s case, but we could know for others.
MLB and the Angels need to own their part. No, they didn’t want to see this young guy dead, and no, they didn’t deliver him drugs, but maybe their inactivity is the issue. Sure, MLB requires drug testing, but that’s all propaganda and image management. Maybe Skaggs tested positive for opiates, but he was given a prescription to mange chronic pain. A urine screen can’t determine if a substance, even a sanctioned substance, is used safely and properly. What of that?
There is a higher standard needed here to care for the young men who make millions for organizations and are lifted up as heroes to blue collar communities and kids. A level of care that isn’t currently offered. There is an obligation for baseball to lead the way. After all, would we have had the civil rights movement without Jackie Robinson? Can we reframe how America treats addiction with the help of MLB? The organization’s backing would certainly help the movement progress. What if a generation of little leaguers felt no shame for tending to their mental health because MLB players do? It would start a revolution. At the moment, the Angels are in left out, busy looking at bugs in the grass and hoping the ball isn’t hit in their direction.