Surely you ve been wondering what happened to John Rocker after his miserable failure as a member of the Long Island Ducks. Well, now you can find out everything, thanks to an interview Rocker did with Deadspin. And it seems we all misjudged the erstwhile pitcher.
Let s start with that infamous 1999 Sports Illustrated article about him. Yes, he did say this about New York:
“Imagine having to take the [Number] 7 train to the ballpark, looking like you re [riding through] Beirut next to some kid with purple hair next to some queer with AIDS right next to some dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time right next to some 20-year-old mom with four kids. It s depressing.”
But he can explain that:
“Yeah, these things were said, but these were the 45 minutes worth of context that surrounded those things that were said. You can make anything look bad when you just strip it out.
Well, gosh, why would Jeff Pearlman (the author of the original article) do such a thing? Luckily, Rocker knows the answer:
Jeff Pearlman is who he is: A liberal Jew from New York. He s one of their own, who spent a couple of hours with me, pulled things out of context, and you re trying to create a persona of an individual when you don t know them.
(Pearlman s response is to point out that Rocker is cheap, and to hint that he has even worse quotes on tape).
Well, what about the claims that Rocker is a racist? Again, no. In fact, “two or three of my best friends are Dominican or Puerto Rican.” Plus his girlfriend is black, which he totally doesn t make a big deal about. Plus, there s a really cute story about how they met:
And you two met when she was interviewing you? Because I want to make it clear that I m not hitting on either one of you.
Yeah, all of her questions were, “Do you have a girlfriend?” “Would you like my number?” I just looked down her shirt, saw what I needed to see and moved on. (Laughs.) I took a leap of faith, because she had a long coat on, and she could have had big birthin hips or something.
I see.
But I found her, and here we are. The hips are fine.
Read the whole thing for yourself, if you dare.