It's Time to Talk About the Pittsburgh Drug Trials

Imagine if "The Big Short", "Winning Time", and "Major League" had a baby.

Happy Friday, Everyone!

Today, we’re not going to talk about the Red Sox. It’s unusual, I know, but it’s late January, there’s not much in the way of offseason news, and it’s too soon to play the prediction game. So, in the meantime, I want to talk about what I consider to be my “Roman Empire”: The Pittsburgh Drug Trials of 1985.

“The Pittsburgh What?!” I know that’s how I felt when I first read about the scandal. The Pittsburgh Drug Trials are what happened after the FBI and the Justice Department discovered that the Pittsburgh Pirates had become MLB’s de facto cocaine distributor. The whole story is rather shocking. There were drugs, parties, sex, betrayals, and unintended consequences that the league is still reeling from to this day. If it sounds like a Martin Scorsese film or The Big Short, that’s how it sounded to me too.

I first learned about the Pittsburgh Drug Trials in 2023. Due to the Writers’ Strike, I had ample free time, and I wanted to write my next feature, which I wanted to be about baseball. I learned about the Drug Trials in my initial research and quickly became obsessed once I started reading Aaron Skirboll’s phenomenal book, The Pittsburgh Cocaine Seven. I desperately wanted to adapt this story for film, but because the majority of my research was coming exclusively from Skirboll’s book, I would need to option the rights. Unfortunately, someone else beat me to it, and from what I understand, there’s a film currently in development. I wish that team the best of luck, and I cannot emphasize enough how excited I am to see them tell this story.

Because there’s so much to unpack here, this will be the first of two pieces covering the Pittsburgh Drug Trials. Today’s piece will cover the events leading up to the trials and the trials themselves, while the second piece will cover the aftermath, the unintended consequences, and why this story matters now more than ever. That second piece will be up this weekend.

Heading into the 1980s, the Pittsburgh Pirates were riding high, no pun intended. They won the World Series in 1979, off the back of beloved stars such as Willie Stargell, Dave Parker, and Bill Madlock. This is the team that famously used “We Are Family” by Sister Sledge as its anthem and adorned those iconic yellow uniforms with stars stuck on their hats. 1979 was also the year that the Pirates introduced their new mascot, the Pirate Parrot. Little did the crowd at Three Rivers Stadium know at the time, but a funny and charming giant bird would open the door for players to get their hands on a relatively new drug making waves across the country: cocaine. Who was the Pirate Parrot? And seriously, was a guy in a giant, fat bird costume responsible for getting a World Series team hooked on drugs? Who was this guy?

Kevin Koch (yes, it’s pronounced like coke) was a Pittsburgh native and a die-hard Pirates fan. At the beginning of 1979, the Pirates were holding auditions for their new mascot, and after being persuaded by his best friend, Dale Shiffman, Kevin auditioned and then later got the job. As a result of being the Pirate Parrot, Kevin had direct access and face-time with the very players that he grew up idolizing. Being the Parrot made him popular, not just with the team and not just with his friends, but with the people of Pittsburgh, who treated him like a local celebrity. The sudden rush of fame and attention was intoxicating, and Kevin wasn’t interested in letting that go. So when players asked him if he knew anyone who sold cocaine, Kevin didn’t hesitate to help out. Kevin’s friend, Dale Shiffman, was able to help Kevin out in this respect, and as demand increased amongst players, other Pittsburgh locals like Robert “Rav” McCue and Kevin Connolly entered the picture. Shelby Greer also provided coke to the team, though his way into the story was a bit different. In the 1979-80 offseason, he met and allegedly did coke with outfield Dave Parker on a flight to Denver. A budding “friendship” began. These five would deliver cocaine to players, and some would be asked to travel with the team when they went on the road. This, just so we’re clear, is drug trafficking.

Purchases were made in the locker room, at bars, and even once in a clubhouse bathroom stall in the middle of a game. Players from all over Major League Baseball benefitted from this, and as for Kevin Koch and his friends, they agreed that if this was what was necessary in order to breathe the same air as their heroes, then it was worth it. At the same time, it was becoming clear to many that this amateur cocaine ring was on shaky ground. The ever-increasing anxiety over getting caught was suffocating. Kevin Connolly, for example, had to learn how to smuggle two kilos of cocaine on his flights from Florida to Pittsburgh. Also, and I can’t believe this is true, most of the players who were asking for cocaine were not paying for it. And cocaine was expensive in the early 80s. Those two kilos I just mentioned would cost around $40,000 in 1983. Shiffman, Greer, Connolly, and the others were, at some point or another, losing hundreds of dollars in order to get the Pittsburgh Pirates high.

The more I read about Kevin Koch, there was something very modern about his story. Now, sure, I could just be saying that because this whole saga predates me by at least eleven years. But Kevin’s story reminded me of a buzzword you may have heard of in the last few years: parasocial relationships. A parasocial relationship is a dynamic in which one party is actively invested in the other party, even though the other party doesn’t know you or experience you in the same way you experience them. For example, how many of you follow someone on social media that you don’t know from outside of social media? That’s a parasocial relationship. These aren’t inherently bad relationships at all; they are actually quite normal. What Kevin Koch and his friends had with the Pittsburgh Pirates before he became the Pirate Parrot was a healthy parasocial relationship. Once Kevin and his friends were sitting at the proverbial “cool kids table,” these parasocial relationships became unhealthy, resulting in a power imbalance.

If you’re wondering about the effect that this was all having on the Pirates’ performance in the 1980s, it was a mixed bag. The 1980 team saw a steep decline from their 98-win championship season, winning just 83 games. In the strike-shortened 1981 season, they had a losing record. And while the team did bounce back with an 84-78 record in both ‘82 and ‘83, they faltered again in 1984, going 75-87. At this point, the cracks were certainly starting to show, and before we talk about how the wheels came off the wagon, we have to talk about Rod Scurry.

The 11th overall draft pick in 1974, Rod Scurry was a left-handed pitcher with a high ceiling and a lot of expectations. Rod joined the Pirates’ minor league affiliate but quickly found himself in trouble. You see, Rod, a Nevada native, had never been this far away from home before. He had no friends, and he missed his family. He was lonely, bored, and desperate for relief, and the only thing that could help him escape those feelings was cocaine. Rod’s rapid drug problem led to inconsistencies in his pitching, keeping him from the big leagues until 1980. Once he was in the Majors, things escalated even further. One night, Scurry showed up on a friend’s doorstep looking to score. His friend was watching the Pirates game on the TV. It was late in the game, and a left-handed hitter was at the plate. This was exactly the situation Scurry was used for. And yet, cocaine was more important. In 1984, in a Los Angeles hotel room, Scurry had a mental breakdown, and the Pirates quietly forced him into rehab. While undergoing treatment, Rod was contacted by two FBI agents, who asked him to provide information on cocaine users and dealers within the Pittsburgh Pirates organization. Even after Scurry began informing the FBI about these activities, and even after he warned Dale Shiffman that he was an FBI informant, Scurry still showed up on his doorstep, needing a fix.

The Department of Justice eventually charged Connolly, Greer, and McCue, as well as Tom Balzer, Jeffrey Mosco, and Curtis Strong, with several counts of distribution and possession of cocaine. Kevin Koch was not charged because the FBI and the Justice Department still needed hard evidence to charge Dale Shiffman. So they gave Koch a choice: immunity for Shiffman. Koch agreed, hoping to salvage what was left of his career as the Pirate Parrot. Wearing a wire, he went over to Shiffman’s home and bought two grams of cocaine. Shiffman was then arrested.

This finally culminated in the Pittsburgh Drug Trials in 1985, and from what I’ve learned, it would’ve made for excellent television. Curtis Strong’s attorney, in particular, Adam Renfroe, took full advantage of the media circus surrounding the trials, making himself available for interviews and often bringing his hyperactive energy with him into the courtroom. The Justice Department made its case to the jury by painting these seven as an intricate network of drug dealers and distributors. Except, that’s not who they were at all. These were fans, blinded by their proximity to fame.

Then-current and former Pirates were not the only players involved in the trial. Several players from across Major League Baseball were implicated and testified, including All-Stars Keith Hernandez and Tim Raines. Raines once famously admitted that he only ever slid headfirst because he kept a small vile of cocaine in his back pocket. Every Major League ballplayer was granted immunity from criminal prosecution in exchange for their testimony against the Seven, something that Curtis Strong’s attorney, Adam Renfroe, took issue with. “We will show you that not only is Major League Baseball on trial, but we will show you that the poor man is on trial. We will show you that the rich and the powerful can get away with anything.” And he’s not entirely wrong. The players who were granted immunity almost certainly received it in large part due to their public profile and the perceived potential damage to baseball if its most notable players were prosecuted. Having members of the Seven travel with them to distribute cocaine does meet the definition of drug trafficking, which these days comes with a penalty of at least five years in prison. And that’s to say nothing of the fact that these players wielded significant power and influence over the very men being prosecuted, even if they never explicitly wielded it.

Of course, it didn’t matter because all seven men on trial were convicted. Sentences varied: Mosco and Balzer received 18 months in prison, while Dale Shiffman and Curtis Strong were both sentenced to 12 years, though they only served four and two years, respectively. As for the team, the 1985 Pirates finished in last place with an appalling 57-104 record. They were also put up for sale by ownership. Kevin Koch was also fired from his role as the Pirate Parrot. Rod Scurry would die in 1992 from heart trouble, which was attributed to his heavy drug use. Despite his betrayal, Kevin Koch and Dale Shiffman reconciled once Shiffman was out of prison.

This concludes the first of two parts on the Pittsburgh Drug Trials. This weekend, a second piece will be published, covering MLB’s response to the trials, and why this scandal is relevant today.

Thank you guys for reading. As always, if you have any questions or comments, email them to notfrombostonsubstack@gmail.com.