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Smith, 29, who stole 50 bases for the Cardinals last year and led the team in hitting and stolen bases in 1983, admitted on the stand that he had purchased cocaine from Strong in 1982 for himself, Hernandez and another Cardinal star, Pitcher Joaquin Andujar, 32. Smith said that the coke was wrapped in pages from "girlie magazines" and was sometimes sent to him by express mail. At the time, Andujar was the leading pitcher on the St. Louis team that won the World Series. This year he was the first pitcher in the majors to win 20 games. Smith, who went through a drug-rehabilitation program in 1983, also named three other players as drug users: Gary Matthews, 35, who led the National League last year in game-winning hits (19) for the Eastern Division champion Chicago Cubs and starred for Philadelphia when the Phillies won the league pennant a year earlier; Dickie Noles, 28, a lackluster pitcher for the Phillies and now the Texas Rangers; and Dick Davis, 31, a former Phillies outfielder currently playing in Japan.
More names were added to the cocaine roster when Enos Cabell, 35, a former Houston Astros infielder now with the Dodgers, testified that his drug habit began in 1978 and reached a peak in 1981. "That was the strike year and we weren't playing and I had nothing to do," he explained. He said he finally quit in May of 1984. Cabell claimed that he had shared cocaine with four players: Dave Parker, 34, a two-time batting champion in Pittsburgh before going to Cincinnati last year, where he led the Reds in runs batted in (94); California Angels Al Holland, 33, a relief pitcher who set a club record of 29 saves last year with the Phillies; Jeff Leonard, 29, a San Francisco Giants outfielder who hit 21 home runs in 1984; and J.R. Richard, 35, the once overpowering Houston pitcher who suffered a stroke in 1980 and was released last year.
Other players whom the prosecution has said it will call in the case were described in opening court statements as cocaine users. They included Dale Berra, 28, a Yankee infielder who spent eight years with Pittsburgh; Baltimore Orioles Lee Lacy, 36, an outfielder who was runner-up for the National League batting title last year at Pittsburgh with a .321 average; Rod Scurry, 29, a Pittsburgh pitcher who entered a drug-treatment program in the spring of 1984; and John Milner, a former Met and Pirate first baseman.
The opposing attorneys in the case had sharply contrasting views of its significance. "Major league baseball is not on trial here," Assistant U.S. Attorney James Ross told the jurors. "Curtis Strong is." But Strong's defense lawyer, Adam Renfroe, insisted that the game was indeed on trial and that the players were "nothing but junkies." He called them "hero- criminals" who "sell drugs and are still selling drugs to baseball players around the league." His client, Renfroe charged, was being used as a "scapegoat" for the players, who are "rich and powerful and have been given immunity so they do not have to worry about going to jail."