John Montgomery Presents This Week's	June 10, 2000	Creep Logo by Alan Fraser
	John Rocker
	Just Another Redneck

Don't you hate it when you give a guy a second chance and he ends up showing his gratitude by rudely biting you in the ass? Baseball gave John Rocker a second chance after he came out of the closet and revealed himself to be a juvenile, homophobic bigot in a Sports Illustrated interview last year. John, a star relief pitcher for the Atlanta Braves, was also given a second chance by his teammates, one of whom he had called a "fat monkey" in the magazine article. Even I gave John a second chance, declaring that the punishment Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig handed down was way out of line for a prejudiced prick who was trash talking off the field.

Why did everyone cut John so much slack? Because he could throw a baseball 100 miles per hour and strike guys out. In sports these days, you can publicly sodomize old men on the History Channel as long as you do your job on the field. Exceptional athletic ability is the only thing that separates a lot of these fat monkeys from a life of cleaning toilets at Taco Bell.

And let's face it: John is great box office. Later this month, his team was scheduled to return to New York, the target of his most intense hate-spewing. That four game series would have been a media madhouse. Tickets would have been sold. Ratings would have zoomed. Everybody involved would gotten a little richer and fatter. American enterprise at its finest!

But this week, John blew it all. He initiated an angry face-to-face confrontation with Jeff Pearlman, who wrote the Sports Illustrated article, threatening him with, "This isn't over between us. Do you know what I can do to you?" He even did the old "flip the bill of your cap around so you can get in the other guy's face" routine we all learned on the playground in elementary school. Like many juvenile, homophobic bigots, John likes to blame his self-inflicted problems on others.

Two days later, the Braves fined John $5,000 and demoted him to their minor league team in Richmond, Virginia. Turns out he's not only screwing up off the field, but on it, as well. This season, he's been just a shadow of the pitcher who could terrorize batters and fans alike. John's reaction was that he might quit baseball and become a stockbroker. Maybe someone ought to tell him what city Wall Street is in.

So now we have a juvenile, homophobic bigot who can't pitch anymore and is no longer in the Big Show. What's left? A redneck. A chaw-chewin', moon-shinin', banjo-pickin', front-teeth-lackin', possum-belly-eatin', Easy-Rider-rifle-rack-totin', sheet-wearin', cross-burnin', squeal-like-a-pig-pokin', sister-chasin' redneck. Indistinguishable from all the other ones at the trailer park NASCAR parties John will be hanging around soon.

At least we sports fans have the Rae Carruth and Mark Chmura trials to look forward to.