Once more this week we were visited by a troubling reminder of how fragile fame can be, how the temptations of a big league life can make careers — and lives — go suddenly sideways.
Matt Harvey wasn’t on trial in Texas this week. That was Eric Kay, formerly the Angels’ communications director, and it took a jury of Kay’s peers about 35 seconds to return a guilty verdict in his role in the death of pitcher Tyler Skaggs in 2019.
But Harvey’s testimony was telling, both in helping convict Kay and in providing something of an explanation and a back story for one of the great falls New York has seen in a long while.
There was a time when a story like Harvey’s was as regular a part of the sports section as box scores and betting lines, and New York was right in the middle of it all. That was the 1980s, and the list of high-profile athletes who succumbed to cocaine (the drug another ex-Met named Keith Hernandez termed “a devil on this earth” during another drug trial, that one in Pittsburgh in September 1985) seemed endless.
Hernandez. Doc Gooden. Darryl Strawberry. Micheal Ray Richardson. Lawrence Taylor. It was an endless parade some years.
Taken together, they tell a story of decadence from a decade defined by it, and also an endless string of “what-if” questions. Hernandez was able to recover from an addiction that threatened to derail his career. Taylor was able to power through it. There were others who were not nearly as fortunate. That’s the devastating power of addiction.
Then, it actually seemed as if sports had moved completely beyond this. Steroids seized the moment, and the deeper we all got on the stories of performance-enhancing drugs, the more the days of cocaine posing as a legitimate threat to sports seemed almost quaint, a slice of yesterday. Maybe we should have known better than that.
And there was Harvey this week, copping to cocaine use, admitting that it may well have been a major factor in him falling from the heights of his Dark Knight fame in 2013 and 2015 to the depths of his latter-career status as a journeyman tomato can.
We don’t get a full picture of what happens, of course, but we can certainly start to connect dots. The day Harvey didn’t show up for a postseason workout. The erratic behavior. The time he wound up suspended for not showing up for work.
And most compelling of all: His puzzling inability to get major league hitters out, starting in 2016.
Few athletes have captured New York’s imagination as suddenly and as completely as Harvey did in 2013. He was on the cover of Sports Illustrated, he was the starting pitcher in the All-Star Game, he was a natural doing TV spots. He got hurt, went away, rehabbed, and came back an even bigger phenomenon in 2015. His return to Citi Field was one of that stadium’s first truly electric moments. His refusal to give up the ball in the ninth inning of Game 5 of the World Series became an instantly legendary moment, even if you thought he was wrong to do it.
That was just seven years ago. A lot can change in sports in seven years. But Harvey going from the mound at Citi that night to the witness stand in Fort Worth this week … it feels like a lot longer than that. That’s because the fall was so steep, and the consequences so vast.
There had been talk in Baltimore that the Orioles might bring back Harvey this year, after he led the team in starts last year. Someone has always wanted to believe in that right arm. Now, Harvey faces the possibility of a long suspension. The odds are good that his career is officially over.
One more time, the temptations of big league life have claimed another victim. One more time, we have been reminded just how fleeting it can all be.
Vac’s Whacks
Well, it’s sure nice to see that the Johnnies have decided to join to the college basketball season, and not a second too soon.
And since we’re on the subject: No matter what happens from here, the little story Steve Pikiell and the Rutgers Scarlet Knights are authoring is one of the great basketball tales we’ve seen around here.
When neither side of the baseball war can stand to be in the same room with the other side for longer than your average sitcom episode, I’m not ready to waste any energy hoping for good things to happen.
Hurry back soon, “Ozark.”
Whack Back at Vac
George Corchia: Reruns of “Seinfeld” on Ch. 11 did better ratings than the Beijing Olympics.
Vac: I’m pretty sure a yearlong version of the “Yule Log” would have, too.
Michael Bruno: Professional Football: Outstanding. March Madness: Riveting. NBA playoffs: Compelling. MLB/players union: Greed. They could care less about their fans. Just wait, when they finally open up, many players will show up with hamstring issues.
Vac: I fear both sides have precious little understanding how much gasoline they pour over themselves every day that passes without a deal.
@KarlSemkow: You cannot blame this on Tom Thibodeau. Look what he’s been given to work with. There are “maybe” two players on this team that are valued by the other clubs.
@MikeVacc: One thing I know for sure: Based on the reactions of Knicks fans, a Rose/Thibodeau ticket would have a hard time being elected to office right now.
Kenneth Meltsner: And the Elvis Patterson Award goes to … In the words of the late John Lennon: “And now Eli Apple’s gonna do his thing … ALL OVER YA!”
Vac: That sure did look, shall we say, familiar.
