Sounds like priority one for Ryan Freel upon the arrival of the Cincinnati media to Sarasota was to explain about his arrest last month. On Marc's blog he's quoted saying that he was just trying to break up an altercation between two guys he knew, one of whom being an employee of the pool/sushi joint where he was attending a bachelor party:

“It was so stupid,” he said. “Here I was, trying to get somebody out of trouble, yelling at him – this is my buddy – and all of a sudden I go to jail. I wasn’t fighting, I wasn’t doing anything.”

In the Enquirer he goes so far as to say that he was targeted because of his celebrity status:

Finally, the (officer) arrested me. I think he knew who I was.”

Which begs the question: if the officer already knew who he was, then who was he trying to fool when his listed himself as unemployed on the police report? Marc has said he'll investigate.

But the poor guy's been embarrassed enough. You know there are plenty of folks out there who are very judgmental of these arrests and who will give him a hard time. There are at least a handful who won't want their kids to try to get his autograph because of them.

Small consolation, I suppose, but not everyone really cares. At least some of us just would have loved to have been there for the party.