Phils should have dealt with Brett Myers much earlier

	Phillies pitcher Brett Myers is accused of punching his wife twice and pulling her hair. AP

Never let it be said that the Philadelphia Phillies are a model organization. Not after the way they botched the situation after pitcher Brett Myers was arrested for allegedly assaulting his wife, Kim, last week.

Phillies manager Charlie Manuel callously trotted Myers out for his next start, one day after the incident, with the explanation that it was in the best interests of the ball club. Myers, for his part, said that his main regret was not that the arrest took place, but that it went public. Ladies and gentlemen, your Philadelphia Phillies. Quite the humanitarians, aren't they?

But Myers and the Phils reversed course on Tuesday, announcing that Myers had decided to take a leave of absence until after the All-Star break to "focus on personal matters." The Phillies not only wholly endorsed Myers' decision, they probably helped him pack.

The whole thing was becoming a nightmare, not only for the Myers family, but also for the franchise. It's not clear what caused the change of heart after the club initially treated the matter so cavalierly that you would have thought Myers was suspected of filling his teammates' caps with shaving cream, not punching his wife twice in the face, pulling her by the hair and leaving her crying on the curb, her face swollen.

Maybe it had something to do with the negative reaction Myers received from Boston fans in Fenway Park, where he was booed so intensely that every time he went out to the mound it seemed like one of those perp walks you see on TV, where the accused shields his face from the cameras and the humiliation. Even the Phillies couldn't be dense enough not to realize that Myers would receive the same treatment everywhere he went, even at home in front of Phillies fans. In fact, that might be the only drawback to his leave of absence -- that Myers won't be subjected to the kind of booing for which Philly fans are legendary. He deserves it, if not for his alleged actions -- he disputes parts of the published accounts of the incident -- then for the insensitive way in which he handled the aftermath.