Used Cocaine for 7 Years, Dodgers’ Cabell Testifies

PITTSBURGH — Los Angeles Dodgers infielder Enos Cabell, resuming testimony today in baseball’s name-dropping cocaine trial, said under cross-examination that he used cocaine for seven years as a major-league baseball player.

Asked what effect cocaine had on his performance, Cabell said: “It didn’t have that much effect. When I used it at night, I couldn’t get to sleep and I would have to sleep during the day. If it was a game at night, that was OK.”

Cabell said he used cocaine from 1977 to 1984.

On another subject, Cabell said he is unqualified to say whether cocaine contributed to a stroke suffered by former pitcher J. R. Richard, a former teammate.

Cabell, who testified Friday before rejoining the Dodgers for two weekend games against the New York Mets, was asked if he thought cocaine led to a stroke suffered by Richard, one of many players whose names have been linked to the drug in trial testimony.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not a doctor.”

Cabell had testified earlier he first met Curtis Strong, the defendant in the federal trial, through ex-Philadelphia Phillie Dick Davis in 1979 or 1980. But defense attorney Adam Renfroe Jr. pointed out that Davis did not join the Phillies until 1981.

“Well,” Cabell said, “I made a mistake on the year.”

Like the two ballplayers who preceded him to the witness stand, Kansas City Royal Lonnie Smith and the Mets’ Keith Hernandez, Cabell testified under immunity from prosecution about his former drug habits, ballplayers with whom he shared cocaine and his alleged illegal purchases from Strong.

Cabell said he made two buys from Strong in Pittsburgh in 1980 and one in 1984. Ballplayers with whom he said he shared cocaine include Cincinnati Red Dave Parker, a former Pittsburgh Pirate.

Parker publicly admitted for the first time over the weekend “recreational use” of the drug by confirming Cabell’s testimony of their shared cocaine in a Cincinnati newspaper interview.

Together, Cabell, Hernandez and Smith named nine other current and former ballplayers, including retired Houston pitcher Richard and St. Louis’ 20-game winner Joaquin Andujar, as cocaine users.