the death of country brown

Sorry, another macabre story.  Much like Joe Green, Elias “Country” Brown, an infielder/outfielder for east coast teams in the 1920s, was known for his on-field comedy act.  He’d go to bat on his knees, or pretend to dig a grave for the umpire, or hold imaginary phone conversations, sort of like a louder, bawdier version of Bob Newhart.

James Riley writes of Brown:

His wife was an actress and, in the off-season, he pulled the curtain for her.  Brown was involved in a tragic altercation with his wife’s brother that resulted in his brother-in-law’s death.  When Brown knocked the man down, his head struck the sidewalk and the impact killed him. (Biographical Encyclopedia, p. 119)

However…in the New York Amsterdam News, January 1, 1938 (p. 3), we find this:

So instead of Brown killing his brother-in-law accidentally, his brother-in-law killed him, perhaps accidentally.  Was Riley reporting a version of the story that had been so garbled that it turned the particulars of the incident completely upside down?  And here we’re told that “Country Brown” was his baseball name, with his real name being Elias Bryant.

I’ve had zero luck so far tracking down either Elias Brown or Elias Bryant.  Anybody happen to know what’s going on here?