Though the likes of Will Leitch were oh-so-quick to kick that great competitor Bret Boone when he was (face) down last week, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s Steve Moore is enough of a quality journalist to understand there are two sides to every story.
The supposed story, as reported in Norm Clarke’s “Vegas Confidential” column in last Thursday’s Las Vegas Review-Journal:
Bret Boone rolled a cart at Wynn’s $500-a-round golf course, then when asked to remove his feet from the bar in the Country Club Grill afterward, turned belligerent and said “Make me!” prompting a call for security.
He also was said to have fallen off a stool, at which time friends escorted him out before security arrived.
But when reached Friday after playing at Pebble Beach, Boone said the story wasn’t true.
“It’s Star magazine stuff,” said the former Mariner. “I feel like I’m Paris Hilton.”
Boone’s version: After playing his round, he admits to having his feet on a chair and thought later that he shouldn’t have because the place was plush.
“The bartender comes over and it’s not, ‘Mr. Boone, please,’ it’s ‘Get your (bleeping) feet off the chair,’ ” Boone said. “Yeah, I should have my feet down. But don’t come at me aggressively. Be a professional about it.”
Boone told him he wasn’t there to cause trouble and that he’d be happy to get his feet down if asked differently.
“I don’t care who you are,” the bartender said.
“I don’t care who I am either,” Boone said. “Don’t come at me that way.”
Boone said he yelled at the bartender and made a condescending remark only because “he was very rude. Don’t cross me and disrespect me to my face and in front of my friends.”
“That’s what happened,” Boone said. “Then the next thing I know I’m flipping carts over and going ballistic, and people are reading in Seattle (thinking), ‘Bret, what a hoodlum.’ ”
Jim Rome, on his ESPN show “Rome is Burning,” lit into Boone, and that was even more irritating.
“Jim Rome buries me every chance he gets because I wouldn’t do his show (in the past). I don’t respect him,” Boone said. “If you’re gonna have a respectful show, at least have the facts.”