CAN HEAR CLEARWATER CALLING
ATLANTA-- Brett Myers says that he was not involved in an altercation that occurred while he was at a Jacksonville, Fla. bar early Saturday morning, and multiple eyewitnesses confirmed his account.
Witnesses who were in Shannon’s Irish Pub, 111 Bartram Oaks Walk in Jacksonville at the time of the incident, said Myers and several friends were at the bar and listening to a band called Chuch Nash at about 12:45 a.m. Saturday. One witness saw an elderly man, passing through a dance floor in front of the stage, fall into a musician.
An altercation ensued that lasted for “a pretty good while,” the witness said, and ended when officers from the St. John’s County Sheriff’s office intervened. Both Myers and other witnesses said that one of Myers’ friends was involved in the incident, but Myers was not.
“There was no trouble with Myers directly,” one witness said.
Myers said that he was at a booth in a different part of the bar when incident occurred.
“My wife saw that there was something going on, and that we should leave,” Myers said. “That is the whole truth.”
The Inquirer made numerous attempts to contact the Sheriff’s office, but could only reach a voicemail message. A source said that no police report was filed.
The Phillies pitcher, who underwent June hip surgery and was scheduled to make his first rehabilitation start yesterday in Clearwater Fla. suffered a bruised left eye the same night, and had to postpone the appearance.
Myers initially told the Phillies Saturday that he injured his eye playing catch with his 4-yeare-old son, then changed his story, informing them that he tripped while trying to exit his wife’s Cadillac Escalade. He told the Inquirer that he drank “two or three beers” while out at dinner. A source at the bar confirmed that claim, and said that Myers did not drink any hard liquor.
“The reason I told the Phillies that story at first was because I felt like an idiot, a klutz,” Myers said, who maintained that the second story about the Escalade was true. “But then I felt bad so I told them the truth.”
Bob Brookover and Matt Gelb team up for their third straight season covering the Phillies for the Inquirer and philly.com.
This is Brookover’s second stint writing about the Phillies, having joined the coverage team after seven years as an Eagles beat writer. Brookover was hired by The Inquirer in 2000 as the Phillies beat writer after spending 13 years writing about the team for two suburban newspapers. While on the Eagles beat, Brookover, who had covered just two winning Phillies teams in 15 seasons, saw the Phillies move into a cash-cow new ballpark and begin playing a brand of the game he found unrecognizable. Follow him on Twitter here.
Gelb is in his third season covering the Phillies. He was hired by The Inquirer in August 2009 after graduating from Syracuse University. He has also covered baseball at The Star-Ledger and Cape Cod Times. Born and raised in Bucks County, he attended Central Bucks High School West. Follow him on Twitter here.
To submit a question for Matt Gelb's Phillies mailbag, click here.
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