ATLANTA – Well, the idea of a repentant John Rocker can be flushed.
In an expletive-filled diatribe before yesterday’s Yankees-Braves game, Rocker verbally accosted the Sports Illustrated reporter who wrote the story last December in which the Atlanta closer issued racist, homophobic and xenophobic comments. Rocker turned his hat backwards Earl Weaver-style then wagged his finger in the face of Jeff Pearlman, telling the reporter, “Do you know what I can do to you? It’s not over between you and me.”
“It was a pretty scary encounter,” Pearlman said of what eyewitnesses called a two-minute, 45-second menacing harangue.
Pearlman, on assignment here for Sports Illustrated, was heading toward the Braves’ clubhouse around 11:15 a.m. when Rocker spotted him. Rocker had been chatting amicably with a couple of security guards, but he immediately launched into an attack on Pearlman, whom he had not seen since the original article appeared.
“He went from glad to being on the brink of rage pretty quickly,” according to Thomas Stinson of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, one of about five eyewitnesses to the incident.
Rocker backed Pearlman against a wall and pointed his finger in Pearlman’s face during the confrontation. Pearlman said that at one point Rocker “grazed” his face with a finger, but the reporter said he thought it was unintentional and that at no point did he think Rocker would physically assail him.
Rocker told Pearlman, “I’ve been waiting for this” and then cursed at the reporter that he purposely came to Georgia in the offseason to write a negative story and hurt Rocker’s family.
“Do you know what you did to my family? You had a choice [what to write] and you chose to [bleep] me,” Rocker said.
Pearlman tried to explain to Rocker that he actually wanted to do a positive story on him. But the reliever called Pearlman a liar. The uncomfortable meeting ended with Rocker telling two security guards to bar Pearlman from the Brave clubhouse. Saying he wanted to avoid a further uncomfortable situation, Pearlman did not try to go in the clubhouse.
Braves officials said Pearlman would not have his access curtailed to any degree.
“We are aware of the incident,” Braves spokesman Jim Schultz said. “We are addressing the incident. We regret that it happened. And we’ll do everything to assure it does not happen in the future.”
Top Braves officials sternly addressed Rocker about the matter, according to a club spokesman. The team looked into trading Rocker during the offseason, and might renew that inquiry or demote him to the minors, not just because of his continued lack of contrition, but also because of pitching that has been as erratic as him.
On Saturday, Rocker was summoned with a four-run lead against the Yankees in the ninth inning. He walked two, hit a batter and only got the last out when Shane Spencer flied to the wall in left. He did pitch a scoreless ninth inning yesterday but allowed two hits before getting out of the inning. Rocker has 10 saves, but has walked 25 in 181/3 innings.
After Saturday’s game, reporters asked to speak to Rocker, and a club spokesman approached Rocker in the team weight room and told the pitcher of this. Eyewitnesses say Rocker replied, “[Bleep] them” and refused to talk.