The Indians, like most teams, have had their share of colorful characters. From Rapid Robert to Mudcat Grant to more present era Indians like Manny Ramirez and Pedro Cerrano. And this generation of the team has a bunch of goofballs who make it easy to root for. All of these guys, fictional or not, have made us smile with their actions, their quotable quotes, or their pure quirks.
But there’s briefly former Indian who is equally as fascinating, but not for reasons that he should be. And once again, John Rocker’s unfettered filter connecting his brain to his mouth is landing him in the news. Some people just can’t help themselves. Chris Perez is an occasional public-relations annoyance; John Rocker is a full-fledged tsunami raining down tons of lethal debris on whatever small baseball legacy he may have made for himself.
Talking gun control is a tricky subject these days for obvious reasons. That’s a dicey enough chat to have with someone by itself. But throwing the holocaust into the whole thing (and being utterly wrong, factually) just screams desperation in trying to gain one last minute of notoriety for a book deal which would help “fix his public image.” Yesterday’s news torpedoes the whole thing a bit, doesn’t it?
(And remember how I said in my piece yesterday that some guys shouldn’t do books? I didn’t think I’d get an A-1 example the next day.)
John Rocker is a bigoted and hateful lightning rod evidently for everything that the First and Second Amendments probably did not have in mind. For his sake, Rocker needs to just stay away from the limelight that he clearly still craves.