SANTA ANA (CNS) – The mother of late Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs is expected back on the witness stand Tuesday, one day after she and Skaggs’ widow each testified in their wrongful-death lawsuit against the team — each acknowledging the player’s history with substance abuse but saying they were unaware of his continued struggle with opioids.
Tyler Skaggs was two weeks shy of his 28th birthday when he died of an opioid overdose in Texas during an Angels road trip in July 2019.
His widow, Carli, filed the lawsuit along with his parents, Debbie Hetman and Darrell Skaggs, against Angels Baseball — alleging wrongful death involving narcotics the left-hander received from the team’s then- communications director Eric Kay, who was subsequently convicted of federal drug charges and sentenced to 22 years in prison.
With the wrongful-death trial now in its second month, Carli Skaggs testified Monday that she had trouble recalling many of the text exchanges she had with her husband years ago when confronted by attorneys for the Angels.
Her memory was hazy about how involved she was in caretaking for Skaggs after his “Tommy John” elbow surgery in 2013.
In one text exchange, Tyler Skaggs asks for a pill because “my knee is killing me” — he had had a ligament taken from his knee and placed in his elbow to repair it. Skaggs’ mother asked Carli to get the pill for him, Hetman said.
Carli Skaggs was questioned about a text exchange between Tyler and former teammate Mike Morin, in which Tyler said, “Ha ha, I’m about to crush a blue right now” because his wife wasn’t there. The widow said “I don’t know” when asked what that message meant.
But “crushed” was a popular verb for him, she added.
“Tyler would say I crushed that meal,” she said.
Carli Skaggs was also questioned about Tyler’s attempts to get the drug Ecstasy while on their honeymoon, and about drug use at his bachelor party. She said she learned during Kay’s criminal trial that cocaine was used at the party.
The widow said she doesn’t know whether her husband ingested cocaine at the party. She later came to learn that one of his friends was a “drug dealer,” she said.
Carli was also asked about Tyler’s text messages to another friend days before he overdosed, seeking OxyContin. Carli said she found out about that during Kay’s trial.
When she found out her husband had OxyContin, alcohol and fentanyl in his system when he died, she said, “I was mad.”
When asked if it was wrong for someone to use those drugs, she said, “I don’t use those drugs. I don’t know anything about them.”
She said she was unaware of him using opioids at the time.
“If he had expressed to me he had a problem I absolutely would want to help him,” she said. “He didn’t share it with me.”
Meanwhile, in her testimony, Hetman discussed childhood photos of her son, gushing over his “chubby cheeks” and his fondness for In-N-Out food.
“Ty and I would go there literally after every Pop Warner football game,” she said, adding that In-N-Out was served at his memorial service.
Skaggs, born in Woodland Hills, was a “skinny kid” when he went to a Stanford baseball camp as a high-school freshman, but “his (pitching) mechanics were so well-tuned” that it caught the notice of scouts.
“It really put his name on the map,” Hetman said.
Skaggs befriended the girls’ softball team at Santa Monica High School, where his mother coached. He promised the players rings if they won a CIF Southern Section championship in 2009 — and came through, Hetman said.
“He said, `Ma, try to keep the cost down”‘ on the rings, she said with a chuckle. “He was very generous.”
Skaggs likely would have gone to Cal State Fullerton if he hadn’t been drafted out of high school, Hetman said.
“He worked his butt off” to fill out and improve his game, Hetman said.
Skaggs loved being at home and “had a vibe in the house. … He had a presence, bigger than life, always a smile on his face, always watching ESPN or a baseball documentary,” his mother said.
At 6-foot-4, his “feet would go off the bed, but he liked it,” she said.
“I think about Tyler every day,” she said. “Every minute I think how much I miss him. … I talk to him literally every day. … When he died, a part of me died. … I never thought I’d have to live my life without Tyler. It’s painful. Every day is a battle.”
She said she never missed a home game, but regretted not taking time off work to see him pitch on the road.
“I should have watched him pitch in Wrigley and I didn’t,” she said, referring to Wrigley Field in Chicago.
In 2013, he confessed to his parents he had a problem with an addiction to Percocet, she said.
So Hetman and Skaggs’ stepfather helped him set up appointments with a general practitioner and a psychiatrist.
“He looked like he had the flu,” she said. “He was very thin. … He looked very sullen and lost, crying out for help.”
Hetman said she knew nothing about opioids at the time, which is why they reached out to the physicians.
When Skaggs was prescribed Suboxone for his addiction, he said he would rather do it “cold turkey,” Hetman said. So she and her husband looked after him as he struggled with the withdrawal symptoms.
“We just surrounded him with love and support,” Hetman said.
Hetman insisted on him continuing drug testing through the next year.
When he had to get the elbow surgery, she said, she told the team doctors about his Perocet addiction and she suggested extra-strength Tylenol, not knowing the more potent prescribed versions of it contained opioids.
But after the surgery, he was “happy go-lucky” and “alert” and “he looked amazing,” she said.
Testimony is expected to resume Tuesday morning at the Central Justice Center in Santa Ana.
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