Rocker Shoots Mouth Off...Again

June 5, Detroit

I had a rather dull column about the NBA Finals planned, but luckily John Rocker decided to go crazy. Wait, maybe I shouldn't say that--I mean no matter how small The Spectator seems, it is a newspaper, and I don't want to be accused of trying to bait Rocker. Which, of course, I would never do ... not acting as a reporter anyway.

But if the Toledo Mud Hens deny my request for a credential, I'll be down there taunting him as unmercifully as I can. Rocker's new team, the Richmond Braves, arrive in Toledo for a three-game set beginning tomorrow.

Toledo, for you geography buffs, is just an hour from Detroit.

Rocker's demotion seems ill-timed, just after confronting the Sports Illustrated reporter who wrote the story about him in which he offended just about everyone. But it is not a surprise. Everyone knew he was wound too tight to make it through the year without incident.

I mean, in Rocker's first game during Spring Training he retired all three Tigers he faced to lock up an Atlanta win. But after a meaningless game, he sat in the locker room and shot his mouth off at the reporters. He accused the media of trying to drag him down. He was angry. That his competitive juices were flowing should have been a good sign for the Braves: you want that quality in your closer. But the fact that he was so wound up, after recording three meaningless outs in a meaningless game, against a team that in this year's pennant chase is meaningless, truly illustrates his true character.

Gone was the calm demeanor from his interview with Peter Gammons on ESPN. Here was the real Rocker--the Rocker who got into it with the fans at Shea all those September evenings, the Rocker who shot his mouth off to a reporter, the Rocker who still thinks that he is right.

My favorite medium has to be sports talk radio, and there's been constant Rocker discussion on the airwaves today.

Rocker's attacks on the media seem to resonate. Caller after caller on Detroit's Stoney and Wojo Show offer apologies for Rocker followed by an attack on the media. One caller said that Sports Illustrated never should have run that story, that the reporter should have not reported it. Others blasted the political correctness of the whole debate.

The Rocker apologists are quick to point out that they disagree with the pitcher, and even quicker to defend his First Amendment right to say what he said. It is a not a stretch to argue that they mean that there was nothing wrong with what he said. They follow this with an attack on the media, saying this was a conspiracy to run Rocker out of baseball.

This all seems to ignore the fact that despite all the arguing from the apologist, Rocker has said everything that is attributed to him. And more than likely, Rocker believes what he has said.

Rocker is correct that the media treated him somewhat unfairly last winter. It beat the story to death, parked vans outside his parents' house. We heard blow-by-blows of the latest verbal barbs from someone.

But after his apology the story seemed to go away. The media had other people, like Ray Lewis, to talk about. The only reason the story comes up is that Rocker brings it up, and then he blames the media for reporting it.

That is desperation. Rocker sees the media as a monolith out to hurt the athletes. The sports radio callers see a poor athlete deceived by the evil, shrewd, muckraking reporters. But I don't buy either for a second.

Athletes at every level deal with reporters. There is always a constant swarm of tape recorders and questions descending on them each time they go out and do their jobs. At any level, the best athletes are fielding phone calls or answering questions from people like me that have to write articles.

Athletes know how to talk to reporters--they get plenty of practice.

Rocker shot his mouth off, and the reporter printed it. As in any story, the reporter writes what the subject gives them. Without Rocker's race bombs, that story is a nice little feature that disappears as soon as the next issue hits newsstands. Rocker blames the media, but he is the one who created the story. It lives and dies with him. And he was the one who refused to let the story go away.