By now, I think almost everybody knows what’s going on with the Angels and the trial of Eric Kay, who is serving 22 years in prison for allegedly supplying a fentanyl-laced pill that resulted in left-hander Tyler Skaggs’ death in 2019. The shocking incident took place just a week after the Cardinals had finished a series with the Angels and Skaggs had picked up a win against them in the finale.
Of greater significance to the Cardinals in that series was that Albert Pujols made his return to St. Louis as a visiting player for the first time. However, as more information comes out about what was going on with the Angels and specifically Kay at the time, the more we as fans find out things that we may not have wanted to know.
An ex-Angels club employee spoke out against Kay on Wednesday, and sadly, Pujols appears to not be 100 percent clean in this whole situation.
Kris Constanti testified that Pujols was paying Kay to do dares such as getting hit by a 90-mph fastball and give him money to buy drugs, and he had video proof of the future Hall of Famer taking part in this situation. Sam Blum of The Athletic even said that Pujols “egged him on.”
Now, we don’t know everything that went into this situation yet, so we shouldn’t jump to conclusions yet about the Cardinals legend’s involvement here, but I’ll give my take on it. To me, this is sad. Ultimately, this whole situation led to the death of a player and a family dealing with a messy legal situation on top of grieving that death. Kay allegedly supplied drugs to several players, including Skaggs. He also was addicted himself.
But more importantly, we see Pujols seemingly taking part in some very childish behavior that doesn’t seem like him at all. That’s the other part about this whole thing that is sad. Kay was addicted to drugs, and he was so desperate that Pujols may have been putting him up to these dares.
Ultimately, you would hope for better from a player that Cardinals fans idolized for decades and showed up to see chase records and milestones. I certainly find myself a little disappointed in Pujols. I don’t want to jump to conclusions, as previously mentioned. Pujols himself isn’t responsible for Skaggs’ death, but he might have taken part in some events that served as stepping stones to what ultimately took place.
When you see something like this, you’re naturally disappointed. I grew up watching Pujols for several years and thoroughly enjoyed all the great moments he had in a Cardinals uniform, such as the home run off Brad Lidge, his three homers in the 2011 World Series, and his 700th career home run, so to see somebody that I grew up admiring do this is disheartening, to say the least.
We’ve all known Pujols to be a kind person who not only worked his ass off on the field, but gave back to the community. That was the image we had of him. Now, I’m not saying that he isn’t that guy anymore. You can’t deny what he did as a player and his contributions to society as a humanitarian. That should never go unnoticed, and you can’t take that away from him.
But I had hoped for better from him than to put somebody suffering from addiction up to dares for money. To me, that’s behavior befitting of a high school bully, and that’s far from what we have perceived Pujols to be. Again, I’m not saying that Pujols is like that at all, but when you grow up idolizing a player, you always hope that he doesn’t take part in stuff like that and is a role model to everybody around him.
This type of behavior is not befitting of a role model, and if this is true, then it may tarnish Pujols’ legacy as a person, all because these were dominoes that fell and ultimately resulted in a player dying. I can’t speak for anybody else, but I can’t picture someone like Adam Wainwright, Matt Holliday, Paul Goldschmidt or Scott Rolen acting this way.
So, in truth, I am a little disappointed in somebody who was once my favorite player. It may be a minor footnote to what happened, but behavior such as this just isn’t right, and I would certainly hope for better from other players.
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