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Former broadcaster Tony Veitch has opened up in a new book about "dumb" and defamatory personal comments he made against leading cricketer Craig McMillan.
Veitch was forced to apologise to McMillan after lawyers were called in over the comments made on his radio show.
McMillan has revealed in his new book that he considered taking Veitch to court after the then-Radio Sport morning show jock read a defamatory limerick on air.
McMillan, Daryl Tuffey and John Bracewell were all targets in the skit that Veitch admits missed the mark.
The incident is revealed in McMillan's just-released biography, Out of the Park.
"The first I heard about it was when Cherie [McMillan's wife] rang me. My mum had heard it on the radio while driving to work. She was brought to tears and was so upset she had to pull over," McMillan said.
"I couldn't understand where Veitchy and his producer [Goran Paladin] were coming from... They got carried away, thought it was funny, when it certainly wasn't. It was in really poor taste."
New Zealand Cricket was furious and lawyers were brought in.
"New Zealand Cricket asked John, Daryl and me how far we wanted to take it and there was talk of court action.
"In the end I thought the biggest thing for me to do was accept an apology from Veitch. I could have said, 'No, that was out of order, I am not going to accept your apology', and take legal action. But who would the winner be in that situation?"
Veitch - who is facing six charges of assault against his former partner Kristin Dunne-Powell and one count of injuring with reckless disregard - is on bail with a pre-depositions hearing set for October 20.
He admits in the new book he was in the wrong over the McMillan limerick.
"New Zealand Cricket were well pissed off about it, and rightly so," he says in the book. "Craig was obviously upset and pissed off and John was pissed off.
"I went to my boss Bill Francis at the Radio Network, and said, 'I fess up, it was a dumb thing to do, I made a mistake - how can I deal with this?'
"I was told by my bosses that New Zealand Cricket had said under no circumstances was I to contact Craig, that they were possibly going to take legal action. It was getting ridiculous - it was dumb, it was a one-off, but it was fixable."
McMillan and Veitch, who lost his jobs at Radio Sport and Television New Zealand following allegations that he assaulted Dunne-Powell, patched up their differences and shortly after the batsman became a weekly correspondent on the show.
McMillan's relationship with coach Bracewell might take a little longer to repair.
The Cantabrian makes it clear throughout the book he is no fan of Bracewell's methods, saying his mercurial temperament made him difficult to work with.
More than once he describes him as "paranoid".
McMillan had several run-ins with Bracewell over matters ranging from selection to his insistence on the players being clean shaven, a rule McMillan found demeaning and an insult to his intelligence, and a ban on music in the changing room.
He blamed Bracewell in part for Nathan Astle - McMillan and Astle are married to twin sisters - leaving the game before his time was up.
