tracer, not particularly, it doesn’t. Rocker’s comments would probably get him in hot water with his employer regardless of race, color, gender or national origin.
“It’s my considered opinion you’re all a bunch of sissies!”–Paul’s Grandfather
John Rocker is an overwhelming talent and I hope he is able to articulate a coherent, convincing apology and remains a productive member of the Braves’ lineup. As I’ve noted before, I think Rocker was trying to gall New Yorkers by characterizing their city as the world capital of human suffering; his failure to make an explicit distinction between the disease and the diseased, between New York’s people of color and the isolation many of them live with, made his comments less of a diatribe against New York City than against the misfortunate, and for this I believe Rocker is truly sorry.
Fact is, however, the Braves organization can get rid of Rocker in any way that is consistent with his contracts. Every major leaguer signs contracts with his own ballclub and with Major League Baseball. Although the idea of a morals clause is outdated, I wouldn’t be surprised if some ceremonial artifact of the old morals clause is still in the MLB contract. Depending on how it is worded, it may or may not be applicable in this circumstance.
Additionally, despite Curt Flood’s trailblazing legal travails, baseball players are basically chattel and their professional destinies are in the hands of baseball’s general mangers. Although 1975 federal arbitration of Andy Messersmith’s and Dave McNally’s contracts effectively dismantled the reserve system–establishing free agency in major league baseball–the system continues to rely on Supreme Court decisions which exempt major league baseball from anti-trust law: Federal Baseball Club v. National League, 259 U.S. 200 (1922); Toolson v. New York Yankees, Inc., 346 U.S.C 356 (1953); and Flood v. Kuhn, 407 U.S. 258 (1972).
What all this means for Mister Rocker is that until he qualifies for free agency–and unless the Braves are explicitly enjoined by contract–Rocker can be traded, cut, or exiled to Richmond at John Schuerholz’s discretion. The special circumstance of MLB’s anti-trust exemption would entitle Rocker to arbitration if he can demonstrate egregious mistreatment by the Braves’ front office.
To clarify, arbitration is the only recourse Rocker would have in this circumstance.
Unless Rocker is able to take any grievance he may have against the Braves to the source of the applicable precedents (the Supreme Court; not at all likely), pldennison is right, this bailiwick falls under neither Title VII nor First Amendment protection.
I find myself once again in complete agreement with Phil. (Should I be disturbed, or am I already?) The 1st amendment does not apply. Rocker said what he said, and the gov’t can not and will not punish him for it. His employer is independent of the gov’t and can do as it pleases, within the confines of MLB rules, and as long as it does not violate laws re: discrimination, etc. In fact, keeping Rocker might be creating a hostile workplace for other employees.
Also, Con, you say his employer should not punish him for remarks made that do not relate to his job. As others have noted, his remarks turn off potential customers, thereby hurting his employer. But note that he also specifically criticized teammates (I think Ozzie Guillen was named) and refered to an unnamed teammate using a racial slur. If you slammed your coworkers to the media, saying your employer screwed up by hiring them and putting them in certain positions, and then used racial slurs against them, I think your employer would be justified in firing you.
That said, I was a big Rocker fan before all of this, and now I am uncertain. His loud mouth attitude on the field is a result of the fact that he puts everything he has into the game. He runs from the bullpen because he is pumped up to be getting the call. He screams like he just won the superbowl when he strikes out a tough opponent. The guy loves what he is doing, and he does it well. I hope he can find a way to make up for some of the damage he has done and continue in baseball, but I won’t blame the Braves if they get rid of him.
Who did he insult? Braves customers/fans? Hell, they can’t even fill up the stadium during the play-offs so no harm there. Mets customers/fans? You don’t think that Mets fans aren’t going to flock to Shea stadium in droves for a chance to see someone hurl a D-cell at Rocker’s head? This whole episode puts fannies in the seats. The Braves and MLB are drooling over this privately but publicly they have to be PC. It is just like the NBA and Dennis Rodman last year.
Again, I am not defending what he said - Hell, I can’t stand the Braves - just his right to say it.
Personally, I am hoping for the blanket party.
“Quoth the Raven, ‘Nevermore.’”
E A Poe
PatronAnejo reiterated an earlier statement:
I finally got a chance to read the entire article; you can think that if you choose, but you’ll be wrong. This guy is a first-class wingnut.
John Rocker being a bigot to non-New Yorkers
Driving on Route 400 in Atlanta: “Look! Look at this idiot! I guarantee you she’s a Japanese woman…How bad are Asian women at driving?” (The “idiot” was white)
On an overweight black teammate: “a fat monkey.”
On his world view: “I’m not a racist or prejudiced person, but certain people bother me.”
John Rocker being a general all-around A-hole
Driving on Rte. 400 behind a minivan: “Stupid bitch! Learn to f—ing drive!”
When a toll gate malfunctions on Rte. 400: “Rocker brings up a thick wad of phlegm. Puuuh! He spits at the machine. ‘Hate this damn toll.’” (Road rage lessons to go with his sensitivity seminar, methinks)
Blaming teammates after he blew the save in Game 4 of the NLCS: “If Walt is playing shortstop instead of Ozzie, that’s not a hit, and we win.”
Failing to back his coach: “Cox…told the media before Game 3 against the Mets that he had spoken to the pitcher, requesting that he tone down his act. ‘That never happened,’ Rocker says now. ‘Bobby never talked to me about it, and I never talked to him.’”
Not bad for less than seven columns.
Livin’ on Tums, Vitamin E and Rogaine
In principle, a private employer has every right to fire an employee who embarrasses the company. A waiter who insults customers deserves to be canned. Perhaps John Rocker deserves the same. But…
The ironic thing is, all kinds of people are calling for Ted Turner to fire John Rocker. Ted Turner! The man who can’t go five minutes without shooting off his mouth about how “Christianity is for losers” and telling Polish jokes about the Pope.
If Turner knuckles under to pressure, and cuts Rocker on the grounds that he’s made stupid, offensive statements… well, talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
My feeling is this: Rocker will gets his comeuppance soon enough. First, forget about fines! Rocker will NEVER get another endorsement deal as long as he lives. THAT will hit him in the pocketbook harder than Bud Selig could. Second, he’ll have to bat against black, Hispanic and Asian pitchers, after all. Think he might have to hit the deck, or dodge a beanball from time to time?
Think black and Hispanic batters might “accidentally” knock him down when he’s covering first base on a grounder? (Think any umpires will try to protect him?)
I asked a politically incorrect question - do blacks similarly get into hot water for saying similar things about Asians, Jews, or Whites in general?
Since the politically incorrect media doesn’t report on such incidents, I get to borrow the following collection of quotes from a politically incorrect web site.
**
Expressions of Ethnic Animosity
compiled by James P. Lubinskas
URL: http://www.frontpagemag.com/archives/racerelations/lubinskas11-24-99p.htm
NOTE: On Rivera Live Monday night, black talk-show host Tavis Smiley denied that there is anti-white hatred or prejudice in
America. Some counter-examples:
SONNY CARSON (black activist in New York, when asked if he was anti-Semitic) “I am anti-white. I don’t limit my ‘anti’ to just one
group of people.” [Mark Mooney, “Ex-Dinkins Organizer Boasts He’s ‘AntiWhite’” New York Post, October 21, 1989, p. 3.]
MILES DAVIS (black jazz musician) “If somebody told me I had only one hour to live, I’d spend it choking a white man. I’d do it
nice and slow.” [“Miles Davis Can’t Shake Boyhood Racial Abuse,” Jet, March 25, 1985.]
ELDRIDGE CLEAVER (former Black Panther leader on why he raped white women) “Rape was an insurrectionary act. It delighted
me that I was defying and trampling upon the white man’s law, upon his system of values, and that I was defiling his women.”
[Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice, McGraw-Hill, 1968, p.14.]
GUS SAVAGE (former U.S. Representative from Chicago to a white member of the press) “I don’t talk to you white motherf— .…
You bitch motherf— in the white press…. F— you, you motherf—ing assh— … white devils.” [Marilyn Rauber, “Reporter Says
Black Rep Hurled Racial Slurs,” New York Post, June 27, 1991, p. 18.]
CHINO WILSON (in an editorial in the Daily Collegian, campus newspaper at Penn State University) “After looking at all the
evidence there is only one conclusion: white people are devils…. I believe that we must secure our freedom and independence from
these devils by any means necessary, including violence…. To protect ourselves we should bear arms (three handguns and two rifles,
maybe an M-16) immediately and form a militia. …. So black people, let us unite, organize, and execute.” [Chino Wilson, “African
American Students Should Not Trust ‘Devilish’ White People,” The Daily Collegian, Penn State University, January 28, 1992.]
KHALID ABDUL MUHAMMED (former assistant to Louis Farrakhan—current leader of the New Black Panther Party) “Hollywood is
owned by these so-called Jews. Look at the movies they make about us, black people killing black people. Let’s make some
revolutionary movies where we kill white people in the movie. Kill 'em so hard you have to cover up your popcorn from the blood
spraying out of the screen.” [Speech at San Francisco State University, May 21, 1997.]
KHALID ABDUL MUHAMMED (on what South African blacks should do to any whites who refuse to leave South Africa): “We kill
the women. We kill the babies. We kill the blind. We kill the cripples. We kill them all…. When you get through killing them all, go
to the goddamn graveyard and kill them a-goddamn-gain because they didn’t die hard enough.”[November 29, 1993 speech at Kean
College in Union, New Jersey.]
MARY FRANCES BERRY (current head of U.S. Commission on Civil Rights)—“Civil rights laws were not passed to protect the
rights of white men and do not apply to them.” [Civil Rights Under Reagan, San Francisco, ICS Press, 1991, p. 141.]
AUGUSTIN CEBADA (Head of the Brown Berets, a Hispanic activist organization at a July 4, 1996 rally)—“We’re here today to show
L.A., show the minority people here, the Anglo-Saxons, that we are here, the majority, we’re here to stay. We do the work in this city,
we take care of the spoiled brat children…. we are the majority here and we are not going to be pushed around.”
AUGUSTIN CEBADA “Go back to Simi Valley, you skunks! Go back to Woodland Hills! Go back to Boston! Go back to Plymouth
Rock, Pilgrims! Get out! We are the future. You are old and tired. Go on. We have beaten you. Leave like beaten rats. You old white
people, it is your duty to die.”
[Quoted in Barbara Coe, Reconquista, The Takeover of America, California Coalition for Immigration
Reform, 1998, p. 20.]
PROF. JOSE ANGEL GUTIERREZ (University of Texas, Arlington) “We have an aging white America. They are dying. They are
sh—ing in their pants with fear!… I love it!”—[Speech of Jan. 1995, quoted in Coe, Reconquista, p. 16.]
SUPREME COURT JUSTICE THURGOOD MARSHALL (in a conversation with Justice William Douglas about racial preferences)
“You guys have been practicing discrimination for years. Now it is our turn.” [William O. Douglas, The Court Years 1939-1975,
New York, Random House, 1980.]
BELL HOOKS (black professor of English at City College of New York) “I am writing this essay sitting beside an anonymous white
male that I long to murder.” [From her book A Killing Rage, quoted by David Horowitz in Hating Whitey, Spence Publishing, 1999,
p. 31.]
SISTER SOULJAH (rap artist and black activist) “If black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white
people.” [R.W. Apple "Jackson Sees ‘Character Flaw’ in Clinton’s Remarks on Racism, New York Times, June 19, 1992.]
ICE CUBE (black rapper and actor, on the anti-Korean album Death Certificate) “So don’t follow me up and down your market. or
your little chop suey ass will be a target. So pay your respects to the black fist or we’ll burn your store right down to a crisp.” [Eric
Briendel, "Rap Star to Koreans: ‘We’ll Burn Your Stores,’ " New York Post, Dec. 5, 1991, p. 29.]
AMIRI BARAKA (black poet and writer) “You cant steal nothin from a white man, he’s already stole it he owes you anything you
want, even his life. All the stores will open up if you will say the magic words. The magic words are: Up against the wall motherf—
this is a stick up!”
[Quoted in Anne Wortham, The Other Side of Racism, Ohio State University Press, 1981, p. 257.]
MARIO OBLEDO—(1998 Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient and former head of Mexican American Legal Defense and
Education Fund—MALDEF) “California is going to be a Mexican state, we are going to control all the institutions. If people don’t like
it they should leave.” [Tom Leykis Radio Show, June 7, 1998.]
MALCOLM X—“The death of over 120 white people is a very beautiful thing.” [Speech in Los Angeles on June 3, 1962 upon
learning of a plane crash. He also said on numerous occasions, “The white man is the devil.”]
REV. JAMES CONE—“What we need is the destruction of whiteness, which is the source of human misery in the world.”
[Quoted in
David Horowitz, Hating Whitey, Spence Publishing, 1999, p. 44.]
ART TORRES (former chairman, California Democratic Party)—“Remember, [Proposition] 187 [the measure to cut public benefits
to illegal aliens] is the last gasp of white America.” [The Social Contact, Summer 1998, p. 290.]
WILLIE BROWN (Mayor of San Francisco, to a white parent complaining that affirmative action would penalize his children) “I don’t
care about your idiot children.” [The Social Contract, Summer 1998, p. 290.]
**
I challenge the folks that flame Rocker on this board to similarly condemn Willie Brown and Thurgood Marshall. 
i think the guy is an a-hole. it never ceases to surprise me how stupid some people really are. but then again, how much sensitivity can u expect from a southern hick with no neck.
Let us not forget the press here! They have been known or dropping a preposition, a pronoun and other key words from a quote, “quoted statement” in an effort to provoke a reaction from the readers and to sell some papers. You can’t believe everything you read in the papers.
Again, it boils down to the almighty dollar and trying to make a buck.
Isn’t money the root of all evil?
“Quoth the Raven, ‘Nevermore.’”
E A Poe
Oh, baloney. Anything that Khalid Muhammed, Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton says is pounced on and bandied about by the media at all levels incessantly, whether there is any merit in it or not.
“It’s my considered opinion you’re all a bunch of sissies!”–Paul’s Grandfather
dlv said
To keep this in the same realm of sports as the Rocker case- I remember a big controversy over remarks Reggie White made, and they weren’t even maliciously intended, just examples of thinking in stereotypes. So yes, if one of the quotes dlv cited were made by a Black or Hispanic pro athlete in a national magazine I’m sure there would be a huge outcry. I’m not so sure there would be a similar outcry if a northern jock made a crack about “southern hicks with thick necks” as ZeroCool made, but there should be (Z- unfortunately there are plenty of pencil-necked northerners who feel like Rocker does)
how hard would it be to get PLDennison expelled from these boards for constantlystirring up problems, and being the authority on “everyone says I am a know it all so i must know it all…”
grow up, or serve as the first human dispenser of 100% correctness, and dont carry an insurance policy…
mike