January 18

This is where John Rocker comes from. His parents, Jake and Judy, are well-educated, religious, hard-working. Jake is a lawyer and executive at Georgia Farm Bureau Insurance; Judy is a former teacher who currently runs a consulting company out of her house. Everyone you talk to in Macon will tell you Jake Rocker is one of the pillars of the community. "I've never met John," says Mariners general manager Pat Gillick, "but for years I've heard that Jake Rocker is an outstanding man, really something."

Where Rocker comes from is not the town the 1974 movie "Macon County Line" portrayed, as so many in the national media have stereotyped. It is a town of one large, rambling house after another. Downtown, where you'll find the "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" storefront, is Duane Allman's country. John Rocker grew up here, out on the north side of Macon.

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But John Rocker has to look in the mirror and worry about himself. He feels betrayed by the original story, but he cannot allow himself to even think about taking the role of victim. ”

Rocker's life-long best friend, Ched Smaha, is the son of first-generation Lebanese immigrants. "My father came through Ellis Island," says Ched's mother Kelly, whose husband Charlie is an orthodontist. "I have known John for 18 years. He's been in my house thousands of times. He's eaten at my kitchen table, eaten my food. I believe in him. I know him. What people don't realize is that John is very smart. He is close to brilliant." Ched is also smart; he is currently in dental school.

Rocker's high school teacher, coach and friend is Jim Turner, a quiet former Triple-A infielder, a man of deep faith and respect. "John was a 3.5 student with the kind of college boards (1270 on his SAT) that would have gotten him into any university," Turner says. "We remained close all these years, and I know him very well. He is not a racist, he is not a bigot."

Bruce Chen, a native of Panama whose grandfather moved from China to help engineer the building of the Panama Canal, defended his minor league teammate this past week. "When I first signed and was in the minor leagues, John Rocker was the one player who would give me and Winston Abreu rides everywhere," Chen said. "He always made sure we had what we needed. Then in 1998, when I needed to go to Leo's camp (a pre-spring training camp run by pitching coach Leo Mazzone), John invited me to come stay at his house in Macon. He also took in Odalis Perez. His parents fed us and took care of us. Never, in all the years that I knew him in the minor leagues, did anything come up about my nationality."

When Rocker played at home for Class A Macon in 1995 and 1996, Australian Glenn Williams lived with him and his family. "When Glenn was operated on, all these miles from home," says Chen, "Judy Rocker was at his side in the hospital." The first day of the '96 season, Rocker called home and told his mother that in addition to Williams, he was bringing a young friend named Andruw Jones to live with them. When all the controversy initially erupted over his tirade in Sports Illustrated, two of the four players Rocker first talked to were Brian Hunter and Rudy Seanez. Then, after Chen volunteered to come to his defense, Rocker spent two days last week with Jones and George Lombard.

"I know you," Jones told Rocker. "But you've got to control yourself."

"When I heard about it, I thought, 'That's John going crazy," said Lombard, the son of a civil rights worker and grandson of a Harvard Business School dean. Lombard, who is black, told Rocker, "Come on. Be careful from now on."

Jay Leno has had guests take baseball bats and whack a John Rocker dummy. Saturday Night Live did a skit that included someone saying, "I'm John Rocker and I'm a racist. ... I'm John Rocker's father and I'm a racist."

"Jake was deeply hurt," says Charlie Smaha. "Here's a man who is anything but a racist, a man who has more than half the men he works with African-American. Jake said he had one thing to cling to -- the fact that they know him and the people on Saturday Night Live do not."

When Jake and Judy were advised not to go to New York to see their only son pitch in the World Series because of concerns for their safety, Rocker called Turner from Yankee Stadium during Game 3 and told him he had tickets for him. "It was really tough on him in New York," says Turner. "But John is very sensitive. He takes everything personally. He especially took all that in New York personally."

Rocker says, "When I got upset, I didn't differentiate between the people spitting on me and hitting me in the head with D batteries in Shea Stadium or Yankee Stadium and the people of New York. That was wrong. Stupid."

When John Rocker imploded with a reporter's cassette recorder running it was not a simple, one-dimensional, talk radio, black-and-white storyline. "I care about John, I like John a lot and I will stand by him as long as he lives," Turner says. "But I worry about him. He was quoted last season as saying he thinks he'll burn out early and die young. That scares me."

What Rocker said was unforgiveable. But the fact is, every team has heard similar diatribes those from small towns across America have about New York City. One of the game's best pitchers, a sophisticated, intellectual graduate of one of the world's finest universities, has splattered teammates with similar comments and boasts that he will never play without a no-trade clause to the two New York teams. "Maybe I'm too conscious of how rude people are," Rocker says. "I come from an environment where people say 'thank you' and are civil and respectful. Why do their fans have to scream obscenities, spit ... they don't do that anywhere else."

Is Rocker wrong? Of course not. Commissioner Bud Selig and New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani should worry about crowd behavior. Selig should worry less about luxury boxes and more about protecting kids from obscene grossness and ballpark violence.

But John Rocker has to look in the mirror and worry about himself. He feels betrayed by the original story, but he cannot allow himself to even think about taking the role of victim. He cannot listen to those who agree with him, and a lot of those 18-to-45, white, male, homophobic talk-radio listeners do agree; those are people Rocker cannot associate with, much less become the poster boy for. Rocker needs to call every teammate and begin reparations with veteran players like Tom Glavine, many of whom he offended with his shots about the clubhouse.

What happened when John Rocker imploded was not some guy drawing swastikas on a wall. Understand him. He was a hyperactive child, who despite his hyperactivity was a top student and the best athlete at Presbyterian Day High School in Macon. He is a Type A personality and, in his own words, "anal to the point of being manic." He is cocky to the point of rubbing some older teammates as borderline arrogant. He takes things personally. And he has an anger in him that worries everyone in Macon who knows and cares for him.

Mix the hyperactivity and the Type A personality, put him in traffic with a messed-up schedule, and he imploded in road rage at the moment when he was discussing New York.

While some call for his banishment, Players Association head Don Fehr, who now understands where some of all this came from, and Rocker's agents, Randy and Alan Hendricks and Joe Sambito, are trying to get together with Jake Rocker and Jim Turner and friends to help Rocker eliminate the temper and the simmering anger.

Rocker denies that returning to New York won't be that tough. He's wrong, dead wrong. He won't be able to go anywhere in the city without being taunted, jeered, cursed and spat upon. He's already shown strains when dealing with blown saves; every great closer has a time when they'll blow three in a week, and he's got to be as even-tempered as Mariano Rivera when it does happen.

John Rocker is not evil. He is, as he stated, "complex," and he needs to address what caused him to lash out after a blown save against the Mets in the playoffs and what happened in his car with that tape recorder rolling. The Braves never addressed the hot wires of his personality, but Fehr and the Hendricks brothers will. And hopefully, John Rocker will move on with his life and career and be the man people in Macon know he is -- Jake Rocker's boy.

Arms race in AL West
Thus, Texas GM Doug Melvin reconsidered and signed Darren Oliver to a three-year, $19 million contract (of which $6M is deferred) to go with Kenny Rogers. What Melvin hasn't tipped is whether or not the Rangers are concerned about Justin Thompson, who likely won't open the season in the rotation after offseason surgery. Melvin indicates Thompson is progressing on schedule and he now has three veteran left-handers in the rotation in a ballpark that favors left-handers in a league that is predominatly right-handed. It means Texas has the weapons to combat Oakland's powerful left-handed lineup, not to mention Seattle with John Olerud and, for the time being, Ken Griffey.

The A's may be top-heavy in right-handed starting pitching and left-handed hitting, but they won 87 games last year and now have Tim Hudson, Kevin Appier and Olivares for an entire season. "What makes the A's such a wild card in this race is that they have so much young talent," says one GM. The A's anticipate that former Boston reliever Ron Mahay will grab the fifth spot in the rotation, but in Triple-A they have left-handed starters Mark Mulder and Barry Zito, their last two No. 1 draft picks.

Ariel Prieto is recovering from surgery and throwing 92-95 mph in Puerto Rico; several teams, including the Indians, are trying to deal for Prieto right now. Reliever Luis Vizcaino is averaging nearly 12 strikeouts per nine innings in the Dominican, and they have two more outstanding relief prospects in Chad Harville and Bert Snow. "The A's and Marlins are the teams with the most prospects we rank as sure things," says one NL executive. "Hudson, Mulder, Zito, Harville, (RHP Jesus) Colome, (OF Mario) Encarnacion. ... They're loaded more than any club in the American League, by far."

But look at one organization's ranking of the best left-handed pitching prospects in the game:

Starters                      Relievers
1. Rick Ankiel, St. Louis     1. Armando Almanza, Florida
2. Ryan Anderson, Seattle     2. J.C. Romero, Minnesota
3. Ed Yarnall, Yankees        3. B.J. Ryan, Baltimore
4. Mark Mulder, Oakland       4. Jeff Williams, L.A.
5. Matt Riley, Baltimore      5. Brent Billingsley, Florida
6. Wilfredo Rodriguez, Hou.
7. Barry Zito, Oakland
8. Ted Lilly, Montreal
9. Nick Bierbrodt, Arizona
10. Corey Lee, Texas

Four of the top 10 are in the AL West, and that's without addressing Mahay or the Rangers' Matt Perisho, who won 15 games in Triple-A and will open the season in the bullpen or as the fifth starter should Thompson not be ready for a couple of months.

Cardinals flying higher in '00?