|
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Multimedia Central Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities Work in Sports
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE |  |
Forgiven? Braves fans somehow find a way to cheer on Rocker
Posted: Thursday April 20, 2000 03:18 PM
How can you cheer for a guy you know is ... well, an idiot? How can you stand for a man you know is not ... right? How can you root for a team anymore? It's hard -- really, really hard, sometimes -- to separate what happens on the field from what happens off it, especially when money and greed and self-promotion and arrest reports and stupid, stupid statements are stuck in between all the box scores and game stories. Still, any real sports fan knows. You have to know. You know this guy is a bigot, or that guy cares about nothing but money, or this guy cheats on his wife, or that guy has been arrested for this or that. You know when a guy's a general ass. You just know. Yet, still, you cheer. You buy tickets and you watch them play and you forget the rest and you cheer, even though you know. "I think the fans -- most of the fans -- have forgiven him," John Schuerholz was saying before the Atlanta Braves' game on Tuesday night. Schuerholz is the general manager of the Braves and he was talking, of course, about John Rocker, the Braves' fireballing closer and fat-mouthed embarrassment. Schuerholz spent a few hours before the game insisting that the Rocker issue was a dead issue. If you listened to the majority of fans in attendance at Turner Field on Tuesday as Rocker bolted from the bullpen, the GM was dead-on correct. There were cheers, lots of them. There were happy signs. Rocker, smartly keeping his mouth shut as much as he finds possible, was welcomed. He was forgiven. A man who said things so ignorant, so hateful, so hurtful to so many was given a hero's welcome. How can you? "In John's defense, he's matured a lot," Braves third baseman Chipper Jones said, and by that he meant Rocker, on his own or by the insistence of others, has mostly shut up since his inanities were published in Sports Illustrated last December. "He's been a lightning rod for quite a while, and I think he's finding out that maybe he doesn't like being a lightning rod." It's important to note that even many of Rocker's teammates are torn on Rocker. They want to see him back because he gives the team a better chance to win. But they don't want to go near him and don't want to be lumped in with him and his ignorant remarks. The Braves' players say they're past the whole thing. But they either can't or don't want -- many of them, anyway -- to forget what Rocker said. Maybe that's where the pro-Rocker Atlanta fans are coming from. They have forgiven Rocker for his remarks, and all they want is to be able to cheer on their home team, a team that has given them so many good memories over the past decade after so many decades of flat-out misery. Maybe they can place John Rocker the blockhead over there and John Rocker the closer over here. Chastise that one and cheer this one. Maybe you can cheer for the game and how it's played, but not the players. Maybe you can root for the Braves, too -- or any team -- and make yourself believe that a cheer for them is not an endorsement of what the players do or say off the field. Maybe you can convince yourself that the tickets you buy and the TV you watch and the example you set for your kids are not in any way condoning the actions of those people you applaud. Maybe you can. Maybe. But you have to admit, it's getting harder to do -- and certainly harder to justify -- every day. John Donovan is a senior writer for CNNSI.com. Comments? To e-mail Donovan, click here.
| ||||||||||||||||||||
