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

[Mizzougrad96]

I'm a bit shocked at the responses.

He didn't take a PLEA deal. Christ. He has maintained his innocence and he *is* innocent. When you get arrested you don't become guilty until proven innocent. They have to prove that you are guilty and they never even made a case. Innocent people get arrested as shocking as the notion seems to some of you.

Let's say you were innocent. And you were being faced with a trial on trumped up charges, in a case with racial overtones. You really wouldn't agree to a stipulation of not getting arrested for the next 6 months in return for them dropping the charges?

One screwed up verdict and he was going to jail. He protested his innocence the whole time and in the end a prosecutor that would have been very motivated to bring this to trial admitted that the police version (they said they had evidence of an assault) wasn't true.

I knew the minute I heard details of this that it smelled bad.

There is no downside to the deal that he took.