Phils Come Out Swinging at Howard Eskin's Report

Last night, Howard Eskin reported on radio and TV that Phillies President Dave Montgomery’s leave of absence due to cancer was a “convenient story” and he was actually pushed out. Eskin went on to say that limited partner John Middleton was aggressively pursuing a majority ownership of the team. Today, the Phillies came out and just said “Nah dude,” which you can see above.

One source told us of Eskin’s report, “I would very much doubt any of what he just reported was accurate,” and Kevin Cooney took to Twitter today, before and after the Phillies issued their statement, doubting the report. He tweeted that “While Howard was right about Monty working straight thru after surgery, multiple people there wanted him to gear back [and] he continued to push thru- working on Phils and MLB stuff- while getting noticeably thinner during the summer treatment.” And then, Cooney said what we’ve all wanted for a long time:

We’d all love that Kev, but I don’t think any of us are holding our breath.