Deadspin
Earlier today, former New York City subway spokesperson John Rocker caused a minor fuss by walking off the set of ESPN's "Cold Pizza" after being informed he would be asked about his famous comments about "queers with AIDS" and not liking foreigners.
But that wasn't his first appearance in New York today. At 7 a.m., Rocker was in Bryant Park, promoting his new reality show, "Pros Vs. Joes," by pitching to winners of an ESPN Radio contest in a batting cage.
Oh, and us: He pitched to us too. Seriously. We batted off John Rocker this morning. We have the full report of just another strange day in the life of John Rocker, after the jump.
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We arrived at 6:30 a.m., which, after a night of drinking every time the Oscars showed Jamie Foxx right after a reference to "Crash," was a sore mistake. We mulled around and met up with the beleaguered press contact for SpikeTV, who had invited us to the event. He was one of the few people there, but, then again, it was 6:30 in the morning.
In what was anything but a surprise, Rocker is huge. He also has a ponytail, which we suppose was inevitable. Some "hey, who's ready to PAR-TAAYY!" dope with a microphone asked Rocker what he thought of the contest winners he was about to pitch to. Rocker responded, "More like contest wieners." Honestly, it's so nice to have Rocker back around.
Just to be mean, SpikeTV hired "cheerleaders" to jump around, bother commuters and hand out Cracker Jacks. We spoke with one while we were both sneaking a cigarette. The conversation:
Us: Jesus, it's freezing out here.
"Cheerleader": You have no fucking idea.
As we waited for Rocker to finish stretching, we looked around for other "reporters." We found two: One was a reporter from The New York Post who looked extremely nervous about the possibility of batting against Rocker. The other: Asian reporter Tricia Takanawa.
Bored and freezing, we began talking to Christopher Becerril, a contestant on the show (a "Joe," if you will). He said that he had lived in New York City for 13 years and "dabbled in skeleton." We tiptoed away before finding out if he meant the Olympic sledding event, or something more weird and sinister.
At last, we were on. Strangely, SpikeTV had hired an actual umpire for the event, even though each "competitor" was only allowed three pitches. We don't know much about the culture of umpiring, but this has to be considered just above umpiring blog softball on the Umpiring Chain Of Gigs.
Unfortunately, before we finally started, Takanawa had to cut some strange promo with Rocker which involved — and thankfully, we have photographic proof here — her sitting on his back while doing pushups. And that got us to thinking about Rocker, and how little headway he has made.
We are a country that loves redemption. It really shouldn't have been that hard for Rocker to rehabilitate his image after that disastrous interview in 1999; it was, after all, only an interview. And it's not that he hasn't been trying. He has hired a full-time PR person — whom, after talking with her, clearly seems to care about Rocker personally as well as professionally; she has the disposition of a perpetually disappointed but still fiercely protective mom — he has taken every opportunity to be fan-friendly during his minor-league stints and even posed in a NYPD hat. Yet he seems destined to be classified as a racist moron with more than a few screws loose in the eyes of the sporting world. He pops up every once in a while, and we all gleefully whack him back down.
Mind you, as the "Cold Pizza" stunt today shows, he doesn't do himself many favors. But why do we save so much vitriol for Rocker? Even if he's is merely an idiot, he's certainly a harmless idiot. He's an out-of-work ballplayer who said something extremely stupid seven years ago and will forever pay the price for it. It's as if we collectively use Rocker as the extreme prism through which we view our own discomfort with the real issues of race, ethnicity and homophobia in sports, and in the world. We might have our own prejudices, unspoken or not, our own concerns, our own views of inequity ... but hey, at least we're not as bad as that guy! Demonizing Rocker makes us feel better; he has become the canvas on which we project all our negativity. He's the dumb hick; not us, not ever.
Which is why no matter what Rocker does, no matter how hard his publicist tries, no matter how many reporters he lets ride his back while he does push-ups ... he'll always be doomed. We need him to be doomed. It makes us feel better.
But enough of matters of a semi-serious nature: It was time to hit. (Excuse our puffiness, by the way; it was extremely cold.) After the Post reporter — who had looked much, much worse than we had during warmups — hit one out of three pitches, we were motioned to enter the cage.
We stared out at Rocker. He really was quite huge. And you know what? We were intimidated. It would be a lie to say otherwise. We didn't need a reminder of just how touched athletes are by the gods in their abilities, just how superior they are to us in every physical aspect ... but we had a feeling we were about to get one anyway. We just hoped it wasn't a reminder right at our head.
But no! We were undaunted! Professional athlete or no, Rocker was not about to deny us our opportunity to relive high school athletic glories. Sure, we spend all day on a couch typing, but that's just how it happened to turn out. Today, today, we would remind the world of how opportunity slipped through our fingers, how close we came to athletic glory. We don't just write here, we don't just observe here, we don't just criticize; we do things!
Three pitches later, we were done. He throws really hard. We mean, like, really hard.
Comments
The Ankiel jersey might be the best part of the story.
Rick Ankiel! I love it.
Keep your weight back.
Where is the picture of the bat slipping out of your hand and drilling him in his racist mug?
Thanks for getting out there and covering the tough stories the mainstream media is afraid to tackle, Will. And, sweet Ankiel jersey.
great jersey choice, Will. you guys are both true winners.
It was not lost on all of us, particularly Cards fans, the Ankiel jersey in an article giving treatment to redemption!!! Viva El Rick!
And you said you don't interact with athletes.
Wow. Oh wow. Will, you had to know what was going to happen after sporting the Ankiel jersey. I don't know what's worse: Will striking out against Rocker or me being happy with going 7 for 10 over two softball games last night. At any rate, way to get out there and live in the cold, frigid real world than on that couch!
What was the ump doing there? You should have argued balls and strikes just to see if you could get tossed.
Is that a leather jacket you have on as your warm-up Will? Hitting never looked this goooooood
Just checked out his publicists site...it's "under construction" but has a link to Rocker's website. under products: "Speak English" t-shirt. description: "Speak English" t-shirt - buy the shirt John wears!" wow. and to think this is his attempt at working his image.
I agree with you about Rocker - not to ignore the idiocy and and insensitivity of what he said but it seems to me that the biggest reason that Rocker has not been forgiven (or, at the very least, allowed to go anywhere or do anything without being asked about that interview) is that his career pretty much tanked after he gave the interview. Sports fans are great at forgiving folks but the forgiveness usually coincides with success on the court or the field. And Rocker probably could have shaken alot of the drunken, racist good ole boy image problems if had managed to pitch well - go ask Kerry Collins how many people in NY or in general were still asking him about his previous displays of Rocker-like behavior after he managed to win a few ballgames for the Giants.
Should I be frightened that I have enough in common with Will to own the Ankiel #66 official BP jersey? Yikes. I mean, lookin' good my man. Lookin' good.
and could you imagine if he didn't have a PR person running around with him? setting up his website? he'd prob be selling shirts that say "Border control begins with a rifle" "Speak English...or die"
you are a brave man.
interesting stuff, honest
That is awesome. How did the contest 'winners' do?
generally, i think we are more likely to forgive and give a second chance to an athlete who can continue to produce. but, rocker has failed to do anything since his PR boo-boo in the baseball world. yet, he continues to try and be in the spotlight and until he does something worthwhile again we will never forgive what he said.
This is perhaps not the most appropriate thing to mention after the Grady Sizemore post, but John Rocker's ass looks disarmingly good in that second photo. I'm too lazy to do research on this, but if I'm not mistaken Rocker's famous comments from seven years ago were not the only stupid things he's said. Didn't he break out with some real gems as recently as last year?
Leitch, that's a terrific story. Talk about your "Deadspin Original Coverage"! Love the Ankiel jersey too. It's almost as bad as my Scott Brosius t-shirt. Anyone remember Rocker circa 1996? The guy was flat-out unhittable. He was an abrasive jerk, but the Braves didn't care, so long as he kept on striking guys out. As soon as he lost his control and a few MPH off his fastball, he was done. It's funny though, even though Rocker now "sucks" by MLB player standards, he still made an average guy look even worse by comparison.
Sorry the whole Matt-Clement-line-drive-off-the-head thing didn't happen.
WILL!!! So weird...I was there....we must have brushed right by each other...sooo bizarre!!
Man, great story! Props on the Ankiel jersey as well, I think that tops my Ryan Leaf and Alex Van Pelt jerseys ... As far as Rocker, I actually kind of miss the guy. And I'm a Mets fan. He was a great villain, one of the best for that short span. It's always fun to have those villains around.
footsteps, you write: "Sports fans are great at forgiving folks but the forgiveness usually coincides with success on the court or the field. " Excellent point, and exactly why the average sports fan has done a complete 180 on Kobe Bryant.
Vatican Plum is correct. One reason that Rocker hasn't been 'Redeemed' is that he doesn't go through the requisite confessional and demonstrated that he understands that what he did was wrong. If I recall, the interview touched off the controversy, but there was other stuff as well. I think it was that same season, when the Braves were involved in a broohaha. No punches were thrown, until Rocker charged in from the bullpen and things got hectic again. Later Glavine (I think) said something to the effect of "It was all under control until some knucklehead came in." Also, he went postal on the reporter who filed the original story. And those are just the things that I can remember off the top of my head. Then in the middle of his comeback, while being totally accessible to fans in the independent league, he said: "I've taken a lot of crap from a lot of people," Rocker told ESPN. "Probably more than anybody in the history of this sport. I know Hank and Jackie took a good deal of crap, but I guarantee it wasn't for six years. I just keep thinking: How much am I supposed to take?" None of it is as bad as the original interview, but it all contributes to the conclusion that he is a grade-A first class knucklehead and Ass. I don't disagree with the points about how you have to have talent, but I am not sure that it's that strange. Especially for athletes that weren't that good for that long, what else should bring them to our attention? Rocker basically only had one really good season, so of course he is famous for being a knucklehead. So Rocker isn't forgiven because he wasn't good for that long, has done multiple stupid thing and hasn't shown that he's learned anything. I don't neccessarily believe that Kobe isn't a rapist and is really sorry for all that he did. But hewas aquitted, and he looked sorry, and he's really good (and has been for 5+ years). Ivan
I can see Rocker's Nike commercial now: ""Love me or hate me, it's one or the other. Actually, no it's not. People mostly just hate me. Still, you should check out my Match.com profile. There's a first time for everything. Just do it!" ps: Will, get that back elbow up! What are you, some Grady Sizemore-loving girl?
"he'll always be doomed. We need him to be doomed. It makes us feel better." truer wortds are hard to find... honestly, a great write up Will, good to see you off that couch.
ya know this article could have been a lot better if you just decided to lean into one, then charge the mound with bat in hand
I got tossed out of the Vet on my birthday for throwing a hot dog at Rocker on his a-hole sprint in from the bullpen.
It's obviously all been said, but you got some balls, my friend. And the Ankiel jersey gave me a good laugh. Bravo!
Great Read Will.
Good story Will. We will have to have you cover some of the wackiness that we at the Bowie Baysox will have this season!
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