Larry Bird Says Bar Fight Was His Fault: ‘ . . . in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time’

Larry Bird says that much of the problem surrounding his reported involvement in a fight with a bartender-bouncer “was my own fault,” and that many times, “it’s not easy to be Larry Bird.”

The two-time Most Valuable Player in the National Basketball Assn. made his first publicized comments on last spring’s incident in an interview published Friday in the Worcester Telegram.

“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” the Boston Celtics’ star forward said of the incident last May with bartender-bouncer Michael Harlow.

“The one good thing about all this is that maybe people finally understand that I’m human. I make mistakes; I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I like to drink beer and go out and have a good time--I’m human.”

Bob Woolf, Bird’s agent, said this week an out-of-court settlement had been reached with Harlow and an unidentified woman, who had sued Bird because he allegedly threw a punch outside of Chelsea’s, a bar near Boston’s Quincy Market.

Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.