There was a low point in Angels baseball before, perhaps not after losing the 1986 American League Championship Series but a few years later, when Donnie Moore shot himself (after shooting and injuring his wife), giving Anaheim a grim brush with deeper loss. It was the Summer of 1989 and the Dodgers were still the reigning World Champions. The club could not make a good move to improve the team on the field if they tried. Soon they let fan favorite Wally Joyner go and all the goodwill from the late-1970s and 1980s had evaporated. A mediocre club that owner Jackie Autry insisted was “Middle-Market” floated listless.
The past twenty one calendar months have delivered a 587-day stretch of the Angels franchise at its lowest. Here is my recap of 21 tragedies in the past 21 months that have brought us deeper into despair than all the dullness of those dark days of yore. Read it and weep and go find that Garret Anderson rookie card or Tim Salmon replica jersey and repeat “Erstad says he’s got it…” like a mantra as you stare at the Vlad Guerreo bobblehead and wait for him to nod your way that this bad dream may soon end.
But none of this nightmare, sadly, has been a dream, it has just been a list…
•JUNE, 2019: Long-term Angels PR flak Erik Kay, who as recently as that Spring had been in rehab for a reported opiate-related addiction, is alleged to have scored street opiates laced with fentanyl for Skaggs at the pitcher’s request.
•JULY ’19: Pitcher Tyler Skaggs dies in his hotel room on the road in Arlington.
•AUG ’19: The Tarrant County (TX) coroner rules that Tyler Skaggs died from choking on his own vomit after ingesting alcohol, fentanyl and oxycodone.
•SEPT ’19: Angels finish the season in 4th place at 72-90. They were 30-47 after the death of Tyler Skaggs.
•OCT ’19: Owner Arte Moreno initiates a managerial change without consulting GM Billy Eppler, bringing in Joe Maddon and firing Eppler’s handpicked replacement for dinosaur (and still never-again hired) Mike Scioscia. Joke is on Arte as ex-manager Brad Ausmus remains on the team payroll. That’s right, we are paying for two field managers at once.
•DEC ’19: The Angels sign Julio Tehran to a one-year, $9 Million contract to fill what would have been Tyler Skaggs’ spot in the 2020 rotation. He finishes the season with an ERA over 10 in nine games started and 31.1 Innings Pitched.
•FEB ’20: Owner Arte Moreno, 75, debuts what may be the first public signs of senility when he nixes a trade to acquire pitcher Ross Stripling and power-hitter Joc Pedersen for utility infielder Luis Rengifo because Moreno feels disrespected that the trade is taking too long to consummate while other teams are examining medical records of separate players involved in what would have been a four-team trade.
•FEB ’20: Special Assistant to the GM Tony LaRussa gets a DUI in AZ during Spring Training but avoids any media coverage until he is hired as manager of the White Sox in October – leaving the three yokels covering this team for the OCR, LAT and the Athletic subscription site embarrassingly scooped by a Chicago media who don’t carry their team owner’s water.
•MARCH ’20: Billy Eppler trades Will Wilson, the club’s 2019 first round pick, for salary relief.
•MARCH ’20: The Covid-19 shutdown. It hit all of baseball but it hit us as well. It affected all of baseball and it affected us as well. It was a disaster for all of baseball but it was one of 25 disasters to happen t the Angels in the past 21 months.
•MARCH ’20: Longtime Angels staff member and visitors’ clubhouse attendant Bubba Harkins outed as pine tar chemist for hire. It is later revealed that former Astro Gerrit Cole was a devoted customer.
•MAY ’20: In response to the Covid pandemic, almost all Angels scouts fired, front office operations gutted.
•JULY ’20: Club refuses to pay minor leaguers until publicly pressured to do so.
•AUG ’20: Former team PR flak Eric Kay charged (in merciless Texas) with distributing fentanyl in conjunction with the death of Tyler Skaggs.
•AUG ’20: Club avoids signing any draft-eligible prospects after regular draft had been shortened to five rounds.
•SEPT ’20: GM Billy Eppler fired after dismal season.
•SEPT ’20: Owner Arte Moreno buys Angel stadium and surrounding parking lot acreage from the City of Anaheim for $150 Million. Angels contractually bound to stay in Anaheim for 30 more seasons. Moreno will redevelop the site with housing, retail and parking structures.
•OCT ’20: Former team PR flak Eric Kay indicted by a federal grand jury for his alleged role in the death of Tyler Skaggs.
•NOV ’20: New GM Perry Minasian hired, fourth Moreno GM hire is fourth consecutive rookie GM. Previous GM Billy Eppler remains on club’s payroll. That’s right, we are paying for two GMs at once.
•JAN ’21: Victor Rojas, the best TV announcer in team history departs the club.
•FEB ’21: Pitching coach Mickey Callaway outed as a creepy sexter.
AND… stay tuned for more as the Skaggs family has five months left to sue the Angels for wrongful death before the two-year statute of limitations expires and Eric Kay’s trial is scheduled for this April!
AND… to balance it out here are five good things that happened in the same time span:
JULY ’19: The combined no hitter.
NOV ’19: Trout MVP.
DEC ’19: Bundy Acquired in a trade for 4 scrubs.
DEC ’19: Rendon signed.
JUNE ’20: Detmers drafted.
That is all I got and there is still plenty of time for those last three to leave the “good” category.
It looks like I’m reading this after the edits. I respect Rev’s willingness to listen to some of the concerns from fans on here and changing the tone a bit.
I will say that my issues with Arte go well-beyond any of his pro-Trump stuff. That connection was already pretty well-known via political donations and the obvious fact that many MLB owners lean conservatively. What’s more problematic for me was his insanely aggressive furloughing of employees and his opposition to conducting the draft, all the while signing a well-below market stadium deal that’s going to make him billions of $$$.
Arte’s issues aren’t limited to just him and are more of a byproduct of our stupid economic system that f’d over millions during this pandemic while the billionaires profited more than ever. But I’m still upset with the principled thinking from so many owners who felt like workers were dispensable while many were doing fine, if not better, financially.
Not final yet. I still think he goes to Dodgers.
Agree – it seems like MLBTR jumped the gun a bit last night. He is down to two teams: Mets and the other LA team….
My guess is He wants to sign with the Dodgers but he’s trying to leverage the Mets offer to get more from the boys in blue. Good luck with that.
Any sane person would have left the team by now. Welcome to the asylum. You can check out any time you like but you can never leave.
It’s quite stark to see it all laid out like that.
Bazinga.
So much Championaise on that sandwich. Their line up is stacked too. The thing I enjoy most about the Mets is that they are not the Yankees.
And if he is a one year wonder, all
The LOLMETS content will be choice.
I wonder where going to arbitration with Ohtani is gonna land on here. I can’t believe they are so cheap they just don’t pay him what he wants. The difference seems so small, it’s penny wise pound foolish.
I fear this may leave bad blood for future negotiations. It’s not like this org has been a thrill to play for given what Rev just covered above, and coupled with all the losing, we should be sucking up to Ohtani. He’s still really young with tremendous potential and a long, long career ahead of him.
January 21st has actually been the highlight of the offseason….so far. At least for me anyways.
Should this site be Woking The Pearly Gates? Asking for a friend.
I know you like to post political stuff. “I’m sure one of my flaws is thinking the PC cancel culture is filled with self-righteous pussies” so surely you can’t object if someone else does.
Actually Eric all my points are usually about how much I hate the politics around the game. So that’s why I pipe up.
crack pipe?
Let’s cut a little slack here. Rev wrote his stuff, saw it was overly political and changed it. I’d say that’s about the best we can hope for from anyone with any views these days.
Agree 100%
Toking the Pearly Gates*
Damn, that’s not a bad dispensary name.
😂
Do not look at Yuppie, do not look at the Chicken. Do not look at that. Look at the ground ball. Field it cleanly with both hands. Be as smooth as silk. You know, make the nice throw to second. Have the nice breaking curve ball. Subtract on the changeup. See the ball and hit it. Don’t associate with the other things of the game. They will eventually bring you down, eat you up and spit you out.
—Bill ‘the Spaceman’ Lee
So we all know what happened, Arte traded for Upton, then resigned him to a bigger contract, and after the dust settled realized, wait a minute, he’s African American, what was I thinking. #thebestguyplays
You can also throw this in the dumpster fire of the Angel’s 2010’s lost decade
The fact that we actually got way worse after being rewarded with the lucrative Fox Sports West Cable TV deal! You would think that with extra financial recourses that we would’ve gotten better……..WE DIDN’T…..
Yep. mo money helps, but not that much. For example, you know who has pretty large markets and attendance stats? The Phillies and Rockies.
Damn, I love a good Rev rant.
Depressing to read it, but the bullshit from the last (nearly) two years is laid out.
I too hate how Arte fired all the scouts who I have spent years either declaring don’t exist because he already got rid of them years ago, or who I have been wailing about for years because they don’t find us any prospects I think are good. It especially chaps my hide that he did this at a time when there are no humans playing baseball to be scouted. It really boils my balls that the scouts hired by the GM I constantly complain about were sent home before the GM I complain about was also sent packing. It totally blows my stack that this GM was replaced by a guy from an organization I keep declaring is miles ahead of the Angels who then brings in a bunch of scouting/development oriented assistants and (presumably) a pile of his own scouts who hopefully don’t suck. It’s a disaster.
Many more scouts and operational folks were fired than have been hired back. What he did with his scouting and ops depts was also broadly disliked across the sport and will hurt the Angels going forward in hiring back good talent. It takes time to build up a well-functioning scouting division, with good lines of communication and cross-checking. It probably set the team back a few years relative to its peers.
Minasian also has supervised some really weird drafts of late. It’s premature to say that he’s either a great scouting mind, or that the Braves’ success is down to his contributions (where he played a supporting role, not necessarily a determinative one).
Yep, totally unclear how PTP will work out. Just wondering, how do we find out how many scouts etc the Angels have working and who they are? I have found myself wondering that at various times in past and have no idea where to track it down…. that would actually be a really cool website, a place that “ranks” scouts, shows who they scouted and touted, who they successfully got signed, etc.
We have 3 college baseball programs that do better than us at developing talent right under our noses! Cal State Fullerton, UCLA, and USC. Maybe even add UCSB to that list too.
Irvine has stepped up lately too.
Cal State Long Beach?
Cool story, but how do I find out how many scouts PTP is employing and if it’s truly less than say 2009? I want to see if PTP really grows that area.
Well looking at the Angels lack of success in discovering, drafting and developing Major League talent, maybe it was time for a purge?
There are supposed to be 7 signs of the Apocalypse. The Angels have 3 times as many in less than 2 years. It’s tough not to view the Organization as doomed.
It is definitely tough to be a fan right now. I try to focus on Trout and Fletch – the latter of whom I would personally include as a huge positive.
David Fletcher was a very welcome surprise. If Walsh steps up and makes first base his own, the Angels could have a very impressive infield. (Well maybe not the catcher position.)
It’s been brutal. Firing the scouts days before the draft, not paying minor league players, those are penny pinching moves that saved Arte a small amount of cash but a lot of integrity. There’s zero surprise we signed no I drafted players.
The optics aren’t good. The impact scouts were gonna have in Covid May on a draft in June is probably negligible. Scouting had been pretty much done by then. The not signing any UDFAs was a total boner though. I’m sure they had guys that they had full work ups on that they just let float into the distance and it makes little sense.
Even looking at it economically, scouts get paid peanuts to haul in game-changing talent. What if the Angels hadn’t went and scouted Trout because the weather forecast was too snowy? Or if an Angels scout hadn’t gone to Hartford to see Sean Newcomb?
From the other side of it, baseball is a tight knit community and people talk to each other. Firing scouts before the draft and not paying minor leaguers paints a terrible picture for a 16-year old to come in and not make the 40-man for another half decade, at earliest. Just go somewhere that appreciates you instead. Org culture starts at the top.
Yeah, it would totally have been better to keep those scouts all the way up to the point where those scouts are fired and replaced by PTP’s guys for the reasons you bring up, though no one was playing baseball, so there were no snowy Trouts to miss out on. It’s just not a DISASTER. Plenty of scouts want jobs. If Arte shapes up and PTP does a good job they can get this rolling a lot faster than 5 years.
If a scout has spent months talking to my kid saying the Angels want him then gets canned a week or so before the draft so the owner can save a few bucks, there’s no way I’m having my kid sign with the Angels.
Also, if I’m a scout and offered a job with the Angels there’s no way I’d leave an organization that treats me even halfway decently.
So it hurts in talent recruitment in multiple ways.
“See there son? That’s what can happen when you got no degree. Go to college and sign with Tampa Bay in a few years.”
I don’t agree with how the scouts were treated. But if your kid had dreamed of playing MLB ball and got picked in the top five rounds last year – you might change your mind about signing with the Angels. And for me, that decision is going to be totally on my kid should that day ever come. I’d only give my opinion if he asks it. (And I’d say – hell ya if he does ask. What if he ended up with the Astros, Rangers or God forbid the A’s?) LOL
I lean this way too. I also think the Angels should be drafting college kids at this point anyway. But I am also sure that there could be at least a couple kids with better options than risking injury pitching at Haystack University who might at least consider college over the Angels if their trusted scout is gone…. kind of like bands being courted who lose the A&R guy who they know will advocate for them. Though said scouts were on the way out anyway…. still, why not just wait until AFTER the June draft? It was just stupid to do it then.
Haystack University. Friggen hilarious.
Picked in 5 rounds, yes. I’m saying the lack of non-drafted players has to be related to the way scouts were dismissed.
Yep. Though they had reports on guys, I’m sure of that, and UDFAs are pretty motivated. I don’t think scouts getting fired cost us any UDFAs, I think they just bungled that situation all on it’s own. GM on the outs, Arte clutching a bag of gold as Covid closes in, etc. I get the sense they didn’t really even call anyone, much less get bouted by UDFAs who saw the scouts were fired.
True. Not a disaster, but not good. I still think, if he’s actually serious about it, Arte/PTP can put together a good scouting/ops department fairly fast. People want those jobs, and while a guy at the Dodgers offices may not jump ship, there are plenty of talented guys who will still be willing to work, especially if Arte n Friends show they’ve gotten serious over the next few months.
They could, of course, also totally blow it.
Austin TX needs a MLB team?
30 year agreement to stay bruh. Someday there will be a team somewhere among Austin/San Antonio…. I hope they are called the Californios.
Silicon Valley Edgelords of Austin-Tonio.
I got here after the apparent edits but will just say it’s depressing to see it spelled out in one place….and know that disasters from the past 10 *years* aren’t even included.
You could write a book on the earlier stuff Arte did and how it really crumbled a little Western-divisional empire (Napoli for Wells –> Pujols –> Hamilton over Torii)
A lot of the sharp people have pointed out that the problem is cultural yet Arte will never touch his buddies in charge at the top to tear the place down and rebuild it with better materials.
He is not a serious owner because if he was, he’d understand the call is coming from inside the house, or in this case, the boardroom. He’s just playing fantasy baseball.
Agreed.
This article makes it sound like Godwinn and Middleton are no longer with the team solely because they support BLM
In my opinion the coincidence was too great to be a coincidence but I edited this post to remove the political angle in order to emphasize the truer disasters tot he fundamental longterm stability of this franchise.
Well, I thank you for making the connection. Without adding the left/right aspect to that, one wonders if that impacted the Torii signing/lack there of those years ago. Makes me think, in any case.
Torii backed down from getting into a clubhouse fight with Albert Pujols in 2012, all of it on Pujols, probably cost us that vey good team making the postseason and definitely cost ust re-signing Torii as Arte favored Albert and yes, that led to HamBone arriving and the rest is history.
Well, the controversy (if one could call it that) reported in the USA Today that year, in which Torii separated the treatment of African-Americans and Black Latino players (suggesting that management pitted them against each other, in terms of signings) also plays into this discourse.
If that legacy continues in the way players are treated, or even the perception of how they will be treated (in arbitration, being called up and down, given playing time) it could impact on the type of players who are willing to come to play in Anaheim. I would hate for Anaheim to have the kind of reputation that Boston has had historically with its Black players.
Well Arte Moreno is no Tom Yawkey and Torii made a delicate point but his was with MLB overall – I would see the three recent departings with Goodwin, Middleton and Jones as more than coincidental in light of Arte’s conservative politics to varying degrees but there is a TON of speculation added here on my part, whereas Torii spoke of a pattern of representation that is more than coincidental.
Ironically, since we’re going identity politics here , The Angels’ African American roster representation has probably been a lot higher than most other clubs. For example look at the 2019 Doyers roster so I’m not sure I’m buying into this concept. The overall decline of African American players in MLB is more emblematic of a larger problem that baseball has in targeting, supporting and developing young talent throughout our vast country and metropolitan areas
Agreed, which is why I’m hoping the mini pattern isn’t really a pattern.
Plus it would require Arte to instruct a guy he’s about to fire (Eppler) to do something really shady and trust him to keep it a secret even after he’s let go. Baseball is a pretty small circle, it would eventually get out I’d think.
Arte favored Albert because he still owed him $228,000,000 over the next 9 years while Torii was in his last year of his Contract.
You think that weighed on his mind just a little? Many commenters here demand pure objectivity and yet our owner lets a little thing like money influence his decisions?!?!
I would like to believe we’re better than the likes of the late Marge Schott, Calvin Griffith and of recent times Donald Sterling in this town which was a sh*t stain in this community that will be hard to live down. 😥
Well, given how quickly the thread derailed at even a hint of politics, I think it proves the point that a sports owner taking a very vocal and official position for a specific politician generally leads to fanbase division and is a net negative. Most owners, with a few exceptions (eg, Ricketts family), keep their heads down and their political donations quiet for this reason. Not least in a state were Moreno’s preferred party only composes 24% of registered voters – people have to make decisions on how they’re going to spend their money and who they’re going to subsidize. Neutrality favors the rich.
All that said, Goodwin, Middleton and Jones were the only three Angels regularly supportive of BLM on social media (not coincidentally, they’re African-American), and they’re all gone now. Some of those players were inexpensive and occupied positions of need (bullpen, left-handed OF). I agree that the pattern begins to strain coincidence.
Yeah, I don’t know the political leanings of most sports owners. As they are rich business owners I have a decent idea, but visibly stumping for a polarizing figure doesn’t do the business any good.
As far as Goodwin and Key, I can see legitimate baseball reasons to let them go. Goodwin was also let go by the Reds and is still a free agent. Minasian cleaned out pretty much the entire bullpen, especially guys with injury concerns. I hope the pattern we think we see isn’t true. Don’t fault people for connecting the dots, though.
And we got a pitcher that is number 12 on our prospects list for Goodwin. I liked Goodwin, but we got a good prospect for him which seems like a good move as he is still there for the taking.
He’s a prospect in an area of need. Not a great one. The return looked light at the time because Goodwin had control remaining. His non tender was a surprise. But his numbers were awful last year.
I think it’s pretty obvious the Reds are racista against any player who does not have bright red skin and a baseball for a head.
Marge Schott’s St Bernard would agree with you.
Our #7 prospect that we just traded to Baltimore isn’t even in their top 20 prospects, so a #12 prospect in our organization wouldn’t make AA on some other major league baseball clubs.
There are countless low rated prospects that have excelled. Surely, Goodwin got Kaapernicked by not only Arte but all of MLB to be non-tendered and still available. The only explanation.
Yes I’m sure Goodwin’s .563 OPS after the trade and declining defensive levels have had nothing to do with availability
Aren’t you forgetting Jo Adell? I follow him on social media and would consider him part of the BLM movement.
Personally I don’t see Arte getting rid of them for those reasons. I mean he obviously ok’d trading Napoli for Wells, he signed Torii Hunter, he signed GMJ, his top picks have been Adell and Adams. Maybe you are saying he has only recently become racist?
Goodwin was an OF with some value on an expiring contract.
Middleton is still a lottery ticket who personally I think Scioscia killed his arm.
Middleton had also said some not so great things about Angels fans which I’m sure no one in the Angels FO liked.
Jones is another lottery ticket and the Angels think they are deep enough at MI.
but Napoli was traded because Arte hates Italians that build next to an active Volcano
Yeah but before you posted your point here I edited those parts out but by all means fixate on something that doesn’t matter anymore, hey give us a SciosciaRant for old times sake…
Rev I give you credit for editing those parts out. I’m certainly not fixated on this issue. I was actually replying to Turk and not to you. Turk had made it sound like anyone associated with BLM had been simply discarded. Maybe that is true. I don’t know Arte’s true intentions. I don’t know PTP’s true intentions. I simply pointed out that they do in fact have someone on the roster that is associated with BLM. I’m sorry I didn’t know I was suppose to not mention anything about it anymore because you had edited out anything with BLM even though Turk was going down the same path, which as I said, there may be some truth there, and if the Angels trade Adell for some 3rd or 4th starter with a few years of control left then I’ll even buy into that theory myself.
Good point, but where is a SciosciaRant for us? Is the outfield playing too far back on that one? C’mon….
A very interesting compilation but it does violate the no-politics rule pretty substantially. I think it is fairly polarizing to call it a ‘disaster’ that Arte was pro-Trump. And the BLM stuff is speculative- there were plenty of other reasons to trade those players – particularly Middleton and Jones.
You mentioned divisiveness – I think this article is divisive. Any chance it could be rewritten or edited to eliminate the political bent? That could be done easily by calling it 21 disasters in 21 months and eliminating the four thinly veiled political stances. Because otherwise it’s very interesting.
Thank you for this advice, I took it.
Very cool. Thanks you for listening and being open minded.
The Goodwin trade could pay huge dividends too.
Packy grades out to 45 on a scale of 80. He’s projected as a middle reliever at best. I’m not saying we don’t need middle relievers, but the dividends are not going to be “yuge” from Mr. Naughton.
Sooooooo …… number 2 starter for this team.
Exactly. Probably want him to pitch every third day…..
Brian Goodwin is also a Tar Heels fan. Why did you not point that out?
I believe Arte is a good man that means well. He is loyal to a fault and is prone to making decisions based on “how things should be”instead of how they are. Arte has owned the team for 17 years. All the key decision makers both on the field and off were hired and/or retained on his watch. Leaders get the results they accept. Arte bears the responsibility for the culture that exists today within the franchise.
Yeah. I think Arte has two big issues. One is that I don’t see how any man can try to be effectively engaged with buying and developing a big chunk of land in Anaheim AND closely watching over a baseball team. Second, he is overly forgiving with Kuhl/Carpino, etc. I am not a big fan of declaring a GM etc stupid and whining about him still having a job two years into his stint (or two months in). Stability and at least some perspective as to how long it takes to actually accomplish something, as well as the obstacles that already exist, is important and constant instability is how you become the New York Jets. I’m glad Arte went and got Manasian and I also think Maddon is as good a pick up as most. Still when it comes to upper management things went stale, now they are rotten, and I think if Arte even just brought in some new blood without replacing his friends he’d see pretty fast that he’s been living with old cheese for a long time and start to faze out Carpino and friends.
I’m having trouble figuring out which way you lean politically. It’s like your totally unbiased tone is an impenetrable wall that I can not see through, over or around and all it tells us is to keep politics off this site.
If your politics lean left, you can share your opinions anytime you want.
What the hell is he doing?
Pulled a gluteal muscle and is receiving a high-tech dry-ice salve or in the case of Darrel Issa here, is butthurt.
I thought maybe he was a liar and his pants were on fire.
His “butt hurt” and required some form of liquid nitrogen to freeze the pain
(genius gift)
I figured it was something like that but oddly have never seen that large gun administering the tx.
I know when players get hit on the hand or elbow by a pitch the trainers have a substance (probably similar or even identical)that they spray on the area.
You’d think something less cumbersome could be used.
I love this GIF. It is very soccer.
I edited the post to take out four points (Goodwin, Middleton and Jam Jones being traded for their vocal support of BLM and Arte’s public support of Donny Divider) that were political, sorry to go “Deliverance” on you and make you squeal like a pig. I ultimately did not want politics to lessen the toll of what is happening to this franchise, now do you want to want t not be Ned Beatty and comment on the remaining content please?
But you couldn’t help yourself in your explanation. C’mon Rev.
The fact that you did that makes you incredibly awesome. You may be the first person I have seen take a look at what they are doing or saying, decide maybe it’s not exactly the right way to go about things and then make changes, in the past 5 years or so.
You inject your politics into a baseball article and then get all pissy when someone calls you out on it.
He edited the article.
Kudos to him for doing so.
Our favorite team is looking at a $100 Million lawsuit from Skaggs’ family, is looking at Eric Kay naming team personell as complicit in a drug ring and I edit an article to make sure it focuses on the state of the team (even though I feel strongly – and that is a feel not a think, as in not a paranoid conspiracy theory but rather a gut feeling – that those four political points I made will come back to bite this club in the ass) and the Q cult here puts it’s buckskin cap on, paints its face and drinks the “politics can never hurt us” KoolAid.
A few people here were magnanimous and I appreciate that, I want the article to impact fans so they aren’t blindsided when more shit hits the fan, which it is about to. It was easy to make that edit in service of a better article, it is tough seeing folks here insist we all stay zip-tied instead of talking about the club.
Very much hoping for an out of court settlement on the Skaggs thing. The insurance companies will have to cooperate with that and Arte will likely have to contribute something as well due to insurance coverage issues. But if this could all be handled without a lawsuit it would be best for all involved. The family likely doesn’t want Tyler’s reputation dragged around in the mud. The statute of limitations is 2 years so there are still 5 months left to get something done without the need for a public filing. Fingers crossed.
Agree that a settlement would be best for all involved.
We certainly don’t need to open that can of worms again in the MSM, especially now, and a new season is around the corner.
Clock is ticking, fasten your seat belts…
And if not, you’re stuck with several legacy papers and magazines, a couple cable news networks, and a plethora of freely available internet and radio platforms. Fuckin’ sucks.