7 Train in vain?
What a sweet, sweet irony it is that John Rocker is trying to revive his baseball career with the indy-league Long Island Ducks, who play a relatively short train ride away from Shea Stadium, where he six years ago compared riding the 7 train in New York to traveling through Beirut. And worse.
Now 30, the xenohomophobe says he's matured and hopes New Yorkers have matured enough to forgive him, according to this New York Post account. He'd even be willing to pitch for the Mets.
Through all Rocker's turmoil, I'll always best remember him for threatening to beat me up in the Danville Braves' clubhouse in 1994, when I covered the rookie-ball team for the Register & Bee. I'm not the most confrontational guy in the world and certainly wouldn't write the rip job he claimed I'd written in a game story. OK, I might have written that he was shelled. But he was. Anyway, Rocker, who could have pulverized me, didn't. So it turned out OK.
And his career looked promising for a few years. It all seemed to fall apart, though, after an unpleasant train ride through the city. After the Braves' bullpen meltdowns the last few days, maybe Rocker should put a call in to John Schuerholz and stock up on MARTA tokens.
Comments (2)
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So you actually were threatened by John Rocker?!? Wow; I'd consider that a badge of honor.
Beyond all of his off-the-field controversy, Rocker, to me, is one of the all-time flameouts in baseball history. He posted a combined 81 saves and a sub-3.00 ERA with the Braves between 1999 and 2001.
But he gets traded to Cleveland and less than two years later, he's out of the big leagues and, as yet, hasn't returned. I just wonder how someone with that much talent can lose it so quickly.
Posted on April 15, 2005 5:07 PM
Welcome to the wonderful, ever-changing world of closers, Bruce. Flameouts like John Rocker are actually usually more the rule than the exception when it comes to closers. Remember Mark Davis? He won the 89 Cy Young as a dominant closer in San Diego, signed a huge free agent contract - well, at the time it seemed huge - with KC and promptly stunk for the rest of the career. Not even a stint with Braves wiseman Leo Mazzone could turn him around. Speaking of the Braves, don't forget Mark Wohlers, who saved the 1995 World Series win, hung that slider against Jim Leyritz and then never threw another strike for the rest of his career. Other dominators who quickly turned busts? Steve Bedrosian, Bruce Sutter, Bobby Thigpen, Brian Harvey, Mitch Williams and recently Billy Koch - who went from the White Sox closer to being out of baseball in less than a year. Yikes!
All of which really makes the accomplishments of year-in year-out closers like Trevor Hoffman and Mariano Rivera even more impressive. There's something about that job that seems to make it relatively easy to do for a season or even two, but very, very difficult to do over the long term.
Posted on April 18, 2005 4:09 PM