Report: Gillies arrested for cocaine possession
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Report: Gillies arrested for cocaine possession
Daily News staff
Tyson Gillies, one of three prospects acquired from the Phillies in the Cliff Lee trade last offseason, was arrested in Clearwater early this morning and charged with felony cocaine possession, the Pinellas County Sheriff Department confirmed. Bond was posted and he was released.
Assistant general manager, player development and scouting Chuck LaMar read a statement on the team's behalf.
“We are aware that Tyson Gillies was arrested today on a drug possession charge arising out of out of an incident that is alleged to have occurred this past June,” he said. “Because this is an open criminal case, we will not comment further at this time.”
According to the St. Petersburg Times, which first reported the story, the 21-year-old outfielder was arrested at 1:10 a.m. and released at 10:52 p..m. on $2,000 bond.
He's been batting .238 while playing only 26 games for Double-A Reading. Bothered much of the year with a hamstring injury, he was in Florida on a rehab assignment in June and was back in Clearwater on a separate rehab assignment when the arrest occurred. He played two games for the Gulf Coast League Phillies last week.
Gillies, along with righthanders Phillippe Aumont and J.C. Ramirez, was acquired from the Seattle Mariners in the controversial trade that sent Lee to Seattle last December.
He batted .341 with 44 stolen bases for Class A High Desert in 2009. At the time of the deal, most of the stories centered on the human interest angle that Gillies was succeeding in baseball despite being legally deaf.
--Paul Hagen
i don't think that's the banned substance you wanna use if you want to make it to the big leagues...— Vermont
Really nice Gillies...- oh great Please Amaro try to sign Cliff Lee this offseason.— Bob65S
- S*****t, just when the Cliff Lee whiners were taking a sabbatical... I really like this kid as a player.— EL Zorro
- Geez...leave the white lines ON the field!— threecount
- Cliff Lee will not return for less than $20 MM so keep dreaming.— palmyra21
- winner— AlonzoMoselyFBI
- Wow. This sucks.— NickFromGermantown
A lot of people have used drugs and still had excellent major league careers (Tim Raines comes to mind immediately_. The Phillies have one of the finest EAPs in all of baseball under Dickie Noles. If the kid wants to play baseball he'll listen to what Dickie tells him.— bird11- we just sold out 100 straight games. IF Amaro went for it and signed LEE we would sell out 500 more straight.— Bob65S
- Al Holland, anyone? I remember when Lonnie Smith, then with the Cards, threw a ball at the Phanatic and later tackled him during pregame warm ups. I believe the Phanatic suffered an injury. Later Smith said he was high on cocaine. The Padres of the mid 80s and early 90s had a few drug users.— EL Zorro
- Cool, 2 no talents and a coke head. Good trade.— Captain
- This can't be good. Who ever advised Rube to take these prospects (Benny Looper anyone) should be put on noticed.— EarlKeese
- $2,000 bail doesn't sound like a serious offense. Let's hope the kid learns from this. He's not the first one or the last one. Pat Day, Jerry Baily and Garret Gomez, three of the best horse racing jockeys of all time had problems with drugs and alcohol.— EL Zorro
- bird11, you're forgetting Daryl Strawberry, he seemed to be coked up every day. This move really backfired on RAJ, did they do their homework on this kid?— 46 and 2
