ESPN's Howard Bryant (allegedly) pulls a Jay Mariotti

I hope this isn't true. A family member of mine had something like this happen to him with his girlfriend. She's still with him 10 years later. It's a weird thing when it's someone you know. It's easy to trash someone you don't know or don't like and easy to defend someone you do know and do like.

 

The charges will be dropped or he'll be found not guilty, but just about everybody will wonder what the truth really is.

A black man yelling at a white woman causes people to react differently. It's sad, but it does.

 

It's on his Fox Sports page. http://www.foxsportsradio.com/pages/jasonwhitlock/index.html?uri=channels/449784/

 

You should read the book before you just assume that he'd pull the race card because he authored it. That book is about as far as possible from someone simply pulling the race card.

And as Oscarx3 notes, this incident--no matter how it turns out--is bitter irony when juxtaposed with some of the incidents Bryant wrote about in that book.

 

It took me three minutes to remember where those lines in your sig came from. Mizzou's is in the SportsJournalists.com HOF.

 

It might be the best line anyone has ever authored here.

 

Whenever I see an employer trying to justify keeping an employee who has embarrassed it publicly or otherwise earned a reprimand, suspension or termination, I always end up thinking about those sports journalists who have done nothing wrong and in fact have always represented their organizations well -- yet end up getting kicked to the curb anyway for economic or staffing reasons because they're not stars or they don't make their bosses feel good about hiring them.

 

Why should the denials "soundly dispel" the possibility that an assault took place?

 

Maybe some of those journalists aren't nearly as good as the people doing the embarassing.

 

A denial by the supposed assault victim that said assault took place does indeed represent a LEGAL refutation (noun for soundly dispel) of the charge. We can't go back in time to capture reality, so the legal system is all we've got to figure this out. I worked with Howard and I liked him and I sincerely prefer to believe his version of events, but I think any declarative statements are premature until the law works its usual agonizing course.

 

Thank you. That is in part why I asked the question.

I'm sure we've all covered enough cases/stories involving police/witness statements/denials/etc. to understand that this is just the beginning of the story.

Declaring either side's version of the events as more accurate or believable at this juncture is premature and, to be blunt, irresponsible for journalists.