Good morning Angels fans, how’s your morning? Well, warm up with some links!
Trial News
The trial in the death of Tyler Skaggs has begun. The defense for Eric Kay has blamed former Angel Matt Harvey for providing the drug Percocet, which Eric has claimed he saw Tyler Skaggs consume.
Meanwhile, the prosecution did not name Matt Harvey, but did agree that Skaggs was provided something by a third party. However, they also reiterate that only Eric Kay could have provided the drugs that did end up killing Tyler Skaggs on the road trip in Texas.
The prosecution has also accused Kay of providing opioids to other players besides Skaggs and that he was provided them by those inside the umpire offices at Angel Stadium.
Keeping up with this all can be confusing. ESPN lays out what happened at Tuesday’s hearing. Basically, the prosecution is accusing Eric Kay of being Tyler Skaggs’ drug dealer, and thus being partly responsible for his overdose death. They also accuse him of dealing drugs to other players. Kay admits to being an addict, but is trying to shift blame, since if found guilty, he will go to jail.
In other court case news, Trevor Bauer will not be charged with any criminal charges. He still may be suspended by MLB, however.
Other News
Oh yeah, and during all of this, MLB has sopped testing for PED use as the CBA has expired. Former players are worried that use will increase in this lull.
In other news, Sinclair and the Cubs are in discussion to make a direct to consumer service for games. Hey, would you pay $18 a month for Angels games?
CBA negotiations are still paused for now. The owners are meeting at Disney World. The Players are meeting in Arizona. In short, they aren’t speaking to each other.
Manfred will speak to the media on Thursday. Do not expect any answers though.
The players are sick of Mafred and the owners prolonging the lockout. I mean, the time is running out on getting a deal done.
Anything I missed? Post below for upvotes.
Brutal drawing of Eric
Looks like a character from King of the Hill.
Legal drugs and PEDs for everyone. Let God and Darwin sort it out. Also, season tickets to MiLB teams for everyone. Plus also also we should make boxing and horse racing great again.
MLB baseball can suck it.
Jeremy Giambi passed away.
Horrific news.
According to TMZ he passed away at his parents So Cal home. And unfortunately, suicide is suspected. Mental health demons. Sad news indeed.
Oh god that’s rough.
Good reminder to check in on your friends and family :/
Only 47. I’m old enough to be his father. Damm. That totally sucks.
I’m convinced that the plan is to miss some of the season. I think the owners have agreed that that will put pressure on the players to concede on many issues. How else explain 7 weeks without a proposal?
So….June 1st, maybe.
It’s been seven weeks since the owner’s proposal?
no, it took 7 weeks from the lockout before the proposal. Because, even though they all knew it was coming for 2 years they had nothing prepared when they started the lockout. And the players aren’t doing much to speed things up. It feels like “we’ll get back to you one of these days”
So you think they would have sorted a bunch of stuff out before Dec 1 when both sides decided to just go waste a month being rich for the holidays? Were the players even meeting with each other back then? I mean sure, I guess the MLB could have made an offer just to make one with no one on the other end of the phone to care. They probably had their initial lame offer ready back during the season, but there’s no such thing as a one sided negotiation, and no offers without active negotiators. Besides, both sides had to cross their arms and stick their lower lips out for a while so the public would figure out who the real victims are here.
Yep, both sides went into this with zero sense of urgency. Now we have this long, protracted, ballroom dance.
I’d gladly pay $18 per month for Angels games. I’d then cut back on cable significantly, probably all together.
If anyone has an idea on how I can get Angels baseball without cable, let me know. Between ESPN+ and DAZN I already get all of my other favorite sports. My son pretty much only watches YouTube and Disney. I’m paying for a ton of channels I rarely watch.
sportsurge.net
Thats what I use
How do you feel about using a VPN to access MLB.tv?
are you saying it’s not on KTLA any more? I left the area in 1982. Perhaps things have changed since then.
No baseball on KTLA.
Not since The Cowboy went to the big campground in the sky.
Was on Fox Sports West, now Bally Sports West. I think the deal expires this year (it coincided with Albert’s contract).
And Prime ticket and On TV before that.
Remember the days when you didn’t even know if the game would be aired in HD or not?
Those were the days…
HD? I remember the days when you didn’t know if it was going to be on tv, you may have to settle for the radio broadcast.
We’re old, dude.
I’m old, you are still a youngster in your prime!!
me in 1977, on my honeymoon in Laguna Beach: “I’ll meet you downstairs in a few minutes, honey”. Then I quickly turned on the radio. Just for a few minutes, though. I had to find out the score.
Compare that to my Dad, who loved the Brooklyn Dodgers. 1946, my Mom is in the hospital, having given birth to my older sister. My Dad parks the car but leaves the radio on because the Dodgers are tied, 0-0, in extra innings. 12th inning, still 0-0. 15th inning, still 0-0, my Dad still in the car. Finally the game gets called after the 19th, still 0-0. My Dad goes into the hospital to find out visiting hours are over. Hoo boy….
That man had a serious death wish.
My Mom was still mad in the late 90s.
Just one more inning….
I am clearly 65 years old.
Yeah, right. You probably don’t even have a lawn.
Many things become possible when you leave California in your 20s
Hard to mow snow.
But the Bud down Mia
I am assuming you meant put the bud down….
First of all, no one calls it bud anymore. And second of all, no.
Depends on your location. Also if you are old as you claim, you do.
If I were that old i’d be calling it grass and reefer haha
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Has Mia been hanging out on your lawn now?
I’m on every lawn and no lawns at the same time.
Schroedinger’s Darned Kid.
That should be the title of my autobiography
No, I have a short fence around my lawn to discourage the lawn pirates and never -do-wells from encouraging their pets to use it as a potty station.
MLB.TV is about $90 a season if you get the subscription for a single team. You also get MLB audio with that.
Are the Angels blacked out in, you know, “Los Angeles”
Oh, good point. I live in Idaho.
So KLAA. Terry and Mark are great.
We can’t get KLAA at night here in Bungalow Heaven, because we are on a granite shelf (believe it or not: it has to do with groundwave transmission). Actually, all we can get is KFI and KRLA.
MLB Gameday Audio is like $20 for the season, and there’s no blackouts.
That’s what I do use. I was just making conversation.
KRLA? I haven’t heard of them since the 60s
Great links today. A lot going on which is weird since no baseball is happening any time soon.
Tough time to be a baseball fan. Tougher time to be an Angels fan.
Noticed how few national writers were even re-tweeting or acknowledging this info yesterday.
Will be interesting to see if it picks up steam today. There is seriously explosive stuff in here, if this gets treated like run of the mill news mixed in with minor league signings you gotta think these guys are trying to keep access to the league/avoid punishment for shining light on this.
They are all close to it. Know about it, or do it….the entire world of professional sports and everyone surrounding it.
Pain management has always been an issue, recreational drug use has always been an issue, abuse, always been an issue.
It’s only “explosive stuff” because someone died from it.
And wouldn’t you know it, “The Angels”……trAdition.
Perfectly said.
I can see why the league may not be in a hurry to strike a deal. Imagine Angels players and Dodgers management having to face the media this week reporting to AZ.
Related: the league should start pushing Arte out. The amount of lawsuits and scandal that have been popping up in recent years should be alarming. At a bare minimum they should push for a firing of the executive team that has allowed the organization to rot.
Why should Arte get pushed out when no one is pushing out the Astros’ owner?
On a daily basis it is harder to support Arte Moreno as the Owner of the team. This organization is going to take a PR hit. A complete reorganization from the top-down needs to be addressed. Won’t happen though because they all are protected by Arte himself.
Arte spends –
https://twitter.com/betweenthenums/status/1491399074477907976?s=21
That’s UNPOSSIBLE!!! It’s well known that Arte is CHEAP ARTE!!!!
Cheap’en evil..
Arte spends. Foolishly.
Wells, GMJ, Pujols, Hamilton are unmitigated disasters.
Spends on roster payroll for sure, but as you pointed out not wisely at times. Does he spend on front office personnel? How about the minor league players? Coaching throughout the system? In 19 years, we were in how many World Series?
Big payroll does not produce Championships, the right people in other positions do. Tampa Bay seems to win, Miami knows how to draft, Houston in the 4th highest market stays in the middle and Oakland seems to do OK. Why? Hiring the right people. If you are leaving three high priced VPs in charge and not seeing results, then it’s time for change.
I was actually talking to an Angels fan at work the other day about this. Ol CheapnEvil just isn’t that cheap. But for some reason he can’t find any pitchers who want to take his money… probably because of all the evil. He has the glory of the Wells, GMJ, Pujols, Hamilton contracts under his belt, which is bad, but is also pretty much par for the course with “big spenders”.
What we were talking about though, was could it have been worse if he’d landed the pitchers he’d pursued? These were the guy’s we could think of…
Grienke. This probably would have been alright. Just expensive.
Wheeler. Yup. Screw this dude’s wife, south Jersey sucks.
Corbin. Nope. Bad.
Strausburg: Nope. Bad.
JA Happ: Meh.
Charlie Morton: Yup. Hate Florida and children.
Cole: Yup, he’s good. Also costs as much as a fighter jet.
Bauer: Ummm…. bad.
Masahiro Tanaka: Bad.
Yu Darvish: Meh
Anibel Sanchez: We’d all demand he burn at the stake before his 3 year cycle of bad seasons ended. Bad.
Gio Gonzalez: Meh, mostly bad.
Dallas Keuchel: Meh.
So only four of those guys would have been the world changers we love to complain about Ol’ Cheavil “missing” on. Two of them were never ever coming here cause wives. But wouldn’t it have been cool if he’d landed Corbin and then landed Strausburg instead of Rendon? Or if we’d “won” and signed Bauer?
But what about some nameless dude nobody ever heard of that was drafted in the 10th round, so we can post his picture with no explanation?
And let’s not forget Free Agent Pitcher Nobody Cared About Who Turns Out To Be Good For a Year So CtPG Guy Bitches About Not Signing Him.. or FANCAWTOTBGFYSCGBANSH.
I for one am still engorged with rage because Arte was too cheap and stupid to sign Miles Mikolas in the 2017 off season.
Yeah, him.
You mean Kole Calhoun?
Strasburg is a good pitcher who can’t stay healthy. He would have driven us crazy being a permanent DL list name.
From the “Being redundant Department”. Tougher Ped rules and penalties need to be implemented.
ESPN put out what they believe are the top 100 players of all time. They allowed ARod and Bonds, Clemens along with Ortiz and Manny to be included. Makes no sense to me, but what’s worse is that Ortiz is considered a top 100 player, these writers seem to not know what they are doing imho.
Take it up with the Department of Redundancy Department.
2022 for the franchise will be under the cloud of all the sick shit that will come out during the Kay trial. The best case outcome is that the front office is confirmed to be incompetent and out of touch. Even with it out that Harvey was likely distributing pills, it’s likely to get much worse before any element of healing can begin.
A bit mystified by the Sinclair/Cubs link, especially since it didn’t mention MLB TV.
What’s the difference? locals won’t be blocked out? I’m already paying about $25/month for all games and it works well for watching Angels in AZ.
It would be a direct single team deal. So like a Cubs app that has live games no matter where you are, cutting cable out of the picture.
Good morning to all, if you’re in SoCal a serious February heat wave so grab your shorts and sandals and have fun.
Trevor Bauer while being kinky, we all agree on that I’m sure, looks as though he told the truth in that it was consensual relations with his accuser. While I am certainly not part of his fan club, I hope he is able to put his career back together.
The Owners and Players are playing hard ball and acting like children, but they are not just far apart they are willing to destroy the game. Whether on paper or for real in cash, billionaires are not going to be pushed into giving up too much of their investments to the players. Players want maybe a counter proposal that can start the talks back up.
If you were a neutral arbitrator and had the last word, how would you decide this lockout?
i haven’t been following the Bauer garbage, but was it really confirmed that beating the woman was consensual?
The judge that initially denied the restraining order stated that the evidence indicated it was consensual. The criminal investigation now found not enough evidence to justify charges.
However, a civil jury with a lower burden proof could still find it was not consensual.
He literally texted her and said “This is what I’m into $@*(@&, @$%!^@ and a whole lot of *^@#%@^ in the $%#%#^.” And she said “Me too. Let’s meet up.”
Then, after all this romance happened said lady was interested in meeting up again a little while later.
This is why I didn’t even understand why it took this long to investigate.