Browsing: Kays

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  Michael RothsteinOct 21, 2025, 03:43 PM ET

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  Michael Rothstein, based in Atlanta, is a reporter on ESPN’s investigative and enterprise team. You can follow him via Twitter @MikeRothstein.

SANTA ANA, Calif. — Los Angeles Angels outfielder Mike Trout testified Tuesday that a team employee alerted him to possible concerns about drug abuse by the Angels’ former communications director, Eric Kay, before the 2019 accidental overdose death of Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs in a Texas hotel room.

Trout said he confronted Kay directly, telling him, “You have two boys at home, and you have to get this right.”

Trout’s testimony brought the court case a step closer to establishing that Kay’s behavior was raising enough red flags to warrant team intervention before he provided the drugs that killed Skaggs at age 27. The Skaggs family is suing the Angels for wrongful death, seeking $118 million and asserting that the team violated its own rules by allowing Kay to remain on staff despite the dangers posed by his drug abuse.

Two team officials, communications vice president Tim Mead and traveling secretary Tom Taylor, testified earlier that they were unaware of Kay’s drug problem or had only indications of there being a problem with prescription medication. Attorneys representing the Skaggs family plan to call at least one witness — Kay’s wife — whose pretrial deposition ran directly counter to Taylor’s and Mead’s testimony, according to a report by The Athletic.

The Skaggs family’s lawsuit repeatedly refers to reporting by ESPN’s T.J. Quinn in October 2019, citing sources who told federal investigators that team officials knew of Skaggs’ drug use long before his death and that Kay was selling drugs to other players.

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Trout, 34, is an 11-time All-Star and became the first Angels player to testify in the civil trial.

Trout’s two-hour testimony alternated between lighthearted memories of his relationship with Skaggs and serious ones about bizarre behavior by Kay as his drug use became increasingly evident. Trout choked up at times during his testimony, and tissues were passed among Skaggs’ family members as they sat in the front row.

Plaintiff’s attorney Shawn Holley claimed in her opening statement last week that the Angels put Skaggs “directly in harm’s way” by continuing to employ Kay after behavioral issues pointed to a drug problem. Kay is serving a 22-year federal prison sentence for providing the fentanyl-laced oxycodone that caused Skaggs’ death.

Angels attorney Todd Theodora countered in his opening statement last week that the team is not responsible for activities Kay and Skaggs undertook in their off time. Team officials were not aware of Skaggs’ drug use or that Kay was providing drugs to players, the defense argues. Theodora said it was Skaggs who “decided to obtain the illicit pills and take the illicit drugs along with the alcohol the night he died.”

Trout testified he saw Skaggs drink alcohol but had not seen Skaggs use drugs other than marijuana and that Skaggs showed no outward signs of using drugs. Trout said he was surprised to learn that multiple teammates had been using illicit drugs. Multiple ex-Angels testified at Kay’s 2022 criminal trial that Kay provided them with oxycodone.

Trout testified that he was unaware of players taking illicit drugs or purchasing them from Kay, but he “may have heard” that when a player wanted Viagra, Kay would go to a doctor to handle that.

Trout said that when he became aware that Kay might be using drugs, he limited Kay’s ability to get autographs from Trout to make sure Kay wasn’t “misusing them” — that is, selling autographed material and using the money to buy drugs.

“I made sure when he brought them [autographed items] down, I knew who they were going to,” Trout said.

Before confronting Kay, Trout said he dared the communications employee to do multiple acts deemed as “horseplay” for varying amounts of money, including taking a 90 mph fastball to the body, eating a bug off the clubhouse floor and another crude act.

Trout’s descriptions pointed to the desperate extremes Kay was willing to go for money. Trout said he stopped offering to pay Kay for the acts when clubhouse attendant Kris Constanti suggested Kay was using the money for illicit purposes. Trout was asked in court how he interpreted that.

“The first thing that came to my mind was drugs,” Trout said. “That’s what I got out of it. I don’t know what kind of drugs.”

Trout said he saw Skaggs for the last time on an elevator at the team hotel the night of his death and that he broke down in tears during a team meeting the following day when he learned Skaggs had died.

He recalled Kay asking Trout to speak to the news media, which Trout said “would be tough.” The days after Skaggs’ death included an emotional home game at which Skaggs’ mother, Debbie Hetman, threw out the first pitch. Trout recalled how all the Angels players wore Skaggs jerseys and that Trout hit a home run in his first at-bat during a combined no-hitter for the Angels that night.

“It felt good to hit the homer,” Trout said. “But emotional.”

Hetman sat in the front row of the courtroom Tuesday next to Skaggs’ widow, Carli.

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  Michael RothsteinOct 15, 2025, 09:52 PM ET

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  Michael Rothstein, based in Atlanta, is a reporter on ESPN’s investigative and enterprise team. You can follow him via Twitter @MikeRothstein.

SANTA ANA, Calif. — Tim Mead, the former head of communications for the Los Angeles Angels, admitted Wednesday to searching the desk of his former employee, Eric Kay, three times looking for potential illicit drugs or drug paraphernalia in Kay’s final years with the franchise prior to the 2019 death of pitcher Tyler Skaggs.

The revelations came during the first day of testimony in the wrongful death civil suit brought by the family of Skaggs against the Angels. Kay, a former communication director for the Angels, had previously been convicted in federal criminal court in 2022 for providing Skaggs the fentanyl-laced pill that led to his overdose in a Texas hotel room and is serving 22 years in prison.

“Three times we went through Eric’s drawers in his desk to look for what it was, I don’t know, but look for a syringe or powder or cutting tool,” said Mead, the trial’s first witness. “I had suspicions and doubts but never found anything. I felt almost relieved I didn’t find something, so I continued to believe what I was being told.”

Whenever Mead discussed Kay’s potential drug issues, he responded by saying that he believed Kay was taking “prescription medication” and mismanaging it while dealing with bipolar disorder and other mental health issues. He said he didn’t have reason to believe Kay was using illicit drugs, but he also said he searched Kay’s desk. Mead said what he was told about Kay’s conditions was bolstered by what Kay and Kay’s family told him about Kay’s issues.

Mead testified about multiple “off days” for Kay, incidents that caused concern but never rose to Mead reporting the behavior to Angels brass. Mead did involve the Angels’ employee assistance program and, at one point in 2017, a human resources employee in an attempt to get Kay help.

The lengthy testimony led to testy exchanges between Mead and the plaintiff’s lead attorney, Rusty Hardin. Late Wednesday, Hardin asked Mead if he played God when it came to decisions with Kay.

“I didn’t play God, counselor,” Mead said in one of the final questions of his first day of testimony. “I tried to help an individual and his family. … And I made decisions based on asking the questions … processing the information I was given.”

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Hardin alternated between painting Mead as a concerned friend and boss and focusing on the unreported incidents. Hardin showed Mead’s concern in multiple text conversations between Mead and Kay’s wife, Camela, about a failed intervention with Kay in 2017 and Kay’s continued erratic behavior.

Mead walked the jury and a crowded courtroom through multiple incidents from 2013 through 2019, including Kay’s hospitalization in 2018 after a problem at Angels stadium where Kay was “sweating and in one of his off periods.” It was, Mead said, the worst he’d seen Kay and when he realized there was a problem he couldn’t handle on his own.

Mead, who left the Angels organization to take a job with the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2019, had multiple contentious exchanges with Hardin, including when Mead said he did not recall finding small baggies of drugs in Kay’s home the day after a failed 2017 intervention and when Mead smiled when giving an answer about potential violations of the Angels’ drug policy.

Hardin then asked Mead the meaning of the smile. Mead explained it was about performing in a fit condition. Mead began giving examples of himself taking medication for a head cold and would he be sent home because he wasn’t in peak condition.

Hardin responded: “You know these examples you just gave have nothing to do with what this is about. If Eric Kay was on the job intoxicated at any time, prescribed or not, was that a violation of this policy.”

Mead responded, “Yes sir.”

Mead also recalled a 2013 panic attack Kay had at Yankee Stadium but denied Kay told him at the time he was taking five Vicodin a day. At the time, Mead did alert the Angels’ EAP program about Kay and tried to get him help.

Mead admitted he never required Kay to take a drug test and didn’t ask the Angels about it until Kay began dealing with the club’s EAP program.

Mead testified he never went to human resources with potential complaints against Kay or when Kay exhibited poor decision-making or behavior. That included two incidents with interns: one where Kay had an affair with an Angels intern in another department, and another a few years later when a separate intern complained to Mead about Kay yelling at her.

Mead said he didn’t report the affair because he “looked at it as a very personal issue.” He spoke slowly as he testified about this, saying he instead talked with “both of them about judgment” and how it was “inappropriate.”

In the yelling incident, Mead had the intern write an official letter but reached a resolution with Kay and the intern before submitting it to human resources. Mead held the letter until he left his job.

Mead testified he admonished Kay multiple times over the years for his behavior and decisions. Mead said multiple times he was just trying to help his longtime employee.

At the end of testimony Wednesday, Hardin asked Mead if sometimes good people can be negligent. Mead responded affirmatively. Hardin asked whether people trying to do the right thing can make mistakes. Mead responded affirmatively again.

Then Hardin asked Mead if this “maybe” happened here. Mead said, “No sir, I don’t.”

Mead’s testimony continues Friday when the trial resumes in Orange County Superior Court. The Skaggs family is seeking $118 million in estimated lost wages plus an undetermined amount in damages from the Angels.

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