SANTA ANA, Calif. — The ex-wife of former Los Angeles Angels communications employee Eric Kay testified Monday that the organization was aware of his drug abuse multiple times before Kay supplied the drugs that killed Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs in 2019.

Camela Kay testified in the wrongful death civil suit that she witnessed team employees and players distributing nonprescription drugs to each other, including once on a team plane where she described opioid pills being handed out. Her testimony was repeatedly interrupted with objections by team attorneys.

Camela Kay’s testimony contradicted that of the first two witnesses of the trial — Eric Kay’s ex-boss Tim Mead, the former director of communications, and Angels traveling secretary Tom Taylor. Mead and Taylor both testified they were not aware of Kay’s drug use and whether he was providing drugs to players until after Skaggs’ accidental overdose death in a Texas hotel room in 2019.

Eric Kay was convicted in 2022 of giving a fentanyl-laced pill to Skaggs that led to his death. Kay is serving a 22-year federal prison sentence.

The Skaggs family is seeking $118 million and possible additional damages, claiming the team violated its rules requiring intervention, including potential dismissal, of any employee known to be abusing drugs. The family asserts that allowing Kay to interact with Skaggs, when both had addiction problems, set the conditions for disaster.

Plaintiff’s attorney Shawn Holley said in her opening statement last week that the Angels put Skaggs “directly in harm’s way” by continuing to employ Eric Kay.

Camela Kay testified that, after an attempted intervention Oct. 1, 2017, when the couple was still married, Mead and Taylor came to the Kay home. She said Mead returned the next day to check on Kay. During that time, she testified, Mead came out of the Kay bedroom holding “six or seven” baggies of about six white pills each. Camela Kay used her fingers to show the size of the baggies, about 1 inch square.

“I was shocked,” she testified. “I questioned [Mead] and asked where he got those. He said Eric directed him and told him they were in shoeboxes.”

She said Mead then put them on a coffee table in front of where Eric Kay was sitting with Taylor.

In his earlier testimony, Mead said he recalled “very little of that morning” and did not remember asking Kay where drugs were, whether he went into Kay’s bedroom or if he found drugs in baggies there. Angels attorneys said in opening remarks that the team was not responsible for Skaggs’ death and was not aware of Skaggs’ illicit drug use or that Kay had provided drugs to multiple players. The defense also argued that Skaggs had used drugs when he was with the Arizona Diamondbacks, whom he played for before his time with the Angels.

Angels attorney Todd 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.”

Camela Kay testified she continued to have concerns about her ex-husband’s substance abuse and that she shared those concerns with Mead and Taylor.

She also said she never saw improvement in Eric Kay, even after he was sent to outpatient therapy following the failed 2017 intervention. Camela Kay testified — backed by text messages shown in court — that she had multiple conversations with Angels benefits manager Cecilia Schneider to get her husband into an outpatient rehabilitation program in 2017.

Kay also testified she had been on the Angels’ plane in the past and that she observed conduct on the plane that caused her concern. When asked about the conduct, she said, “I had seen them passing out pills and drinking alcohol excessively.”

Asked plaintiff’s attorney Leah Graham: “When you say observed them, who is the them?”

“Players, clubbies,” Kay replied, indicating she believed she saw Xanax and Percocet being handed out. She later said she was kept away from players on the plane, “but you can see what’s going on behind you” and when she would go to the bathroom.

In 2013, Camela Kay said, Mead and Taylor were at the team hotel after Eric Kay had a panic attack at Yankee Stadium in New York. It was there, Camela Kay said, where Eric Kay told her he was taking five Vicodin per day. She testified Taylor and Mead were there and heard the admission.

In 2019, she testified Monday afternoon, Taylor drove Eric Kay home after an episode of strange behavior at the office. She said she found a pill bottle in the gutter where Taylor’s car was parked, and she emptied the contents in front of Taylor — about 10 blue pills that she told him were oxycodone. She said she told Taylor her husband needed help. Eric Kay later went with his sister to the hospital, where he spent three days before starting outpatient rehab. She quoted Kay’s sister as saying the pills were for Skaggs.

In earlier testimony, Taylor said he drove Eric Kay home but denied that Camela Kay dumped blue pills out in front of him. He also denied that he was told they were oxycodone and that they were for Skaggs.

Camela Kay’s testimony continues Tuesday.

LOS ANGELES — MLB commissioner Rob Manfred called major league player involvement in the 2028 Olympics “a unique opportunity to market the sport worldwide” and sounded optimistic while talking through the logistics of how that might work when the Games come to L.A. in summer 2028.

“The way we’re thinking about it is it would be an extension of the All-Star break,” Manfred said Monday in an interview on ESPN Radio ahead of Game 3 of the World Series. “The All-Star break would begin, we’d play the All-Star Game, and then roll right into the Olympics thereafter. So, it’d be probably 11 days of break, all in, something like that.”

MLB’s All-Star Game, traditionally on a Tuesday, would likely take place July 11 in 2028. Baseball in the Olympics is currently scheduled to be played July 15-20. If it works out, baseball’s regular season would pause for close to two weeks in the middle of July. Manfred reiterated to ESPN’s Jon Sciambi and Buster Olney that separating it into two breaks “gets really complicated” and would ultimately cause an even longer break because of the additional travel days required.

Manfred also shed light Monday on MLB and ESPN’s potential new rights deal, which has yet to be announced, saying there will be “a Wednesday night package” while making reference to the league’s streaming arm, MLB.TV, being part of ESPN’s direct-to-consumer offerings.

“There’s going to be integration in terms of local broadcasts that I think the folks at ESPN, and certainly we, look at as an experiment that can be really helpful to the game as we move forward in a rapidly changing environment,” Manfred said.

Asked what has him most excited about MLB, Manfred said, “International.” The 2025 season began in Japan, one year after beginning in South Korea. Next year, the World Baseball Classic will be played. And two years after that, the hope is that some of the world’s best baseball players will participate in the Olympics for the first time since 1992.

Casey Wasserman, chairman of the LA 2028 organizing committee, made what Manfred called “a really compelling presentation” to league owners on the subject, calling it a one-time opportunity with the Games being held in the United States. Manfred said MLB is “in the phase now of working with the players’ association to get them on board with the program.”

“It’s a unique opportunity to market the sport worldwide, and you ought to take advantage of it,” Manfred said. “So, that’s why we’re continuing down the road. I think the owners really buy into that idea. It is a complicated path. We’ve made great progress with LA 2028 in terms of scheduling, exactly what the tournament would look like, how the qualifiers would look, how it would fit into the Olympic program.”