Baseballhead:
America Needs Jerks

Michael Cox

Well, bust my britches! It's time for another episode of Baseballhead, where we think Fox Sports' Jim Rome knows a wee bit too much about pro wrestling to claim that he doesn't watch it. Busted, Jimmy baby!

Moving on to something people do claim to be intimately familiar with, let's talk about baseball's so-called "jerks." Or more importantly, the American public's utter and total obsession with "jerks."

There's nothing that baseball fans like to do more, it seems, than to discuss the bad things that highly-paid players have done. And when I say "discuss," I mean "grouse about ad infinitum, as if there weren't actually important things to do with one's life." Go into any Usenet baseball newsgroup, from rec.sport.baseball to the individual team groups, or any AOL baseball chat room, or any Web message board, and you'll find posts like the following:

"Rocker's a racist idiot."

"Rocker should be suspended from baseball for life. There's no room for such unabashed hate in baseball."

"I'll be bringing my D-cells next time the Braves play Shea."

"The terrible example set by Mr. Rocker is not what our great game is about and, in fact, is a profound breach of the social compact we hold in such high regard."

Oh, sorry. Bud Selig said that last one.

Conversely, posts declaring Brad Radke "a credit to his community" only occur when Brad Radke dreams about his computer.

And it doesn't stop with Rocker. Fans in Seattle have worked themselves into such a manic frenzy at the perceived slights (and I stress the word "perceived") by Ken Griffey Jr. that they've taken to mailing him death threats.

The problem with all this is the way Rocker's and Griffey's comments are blown up and distorted. Why? Plainly stated, the media has a great financial interest in keeping you foaming at the mouth with anger over traitors, idiots and "jerks."

Columnists whip up a quick blood vessel-bursting piece, then their newspaper pats them on the back as the letters roll in. Websites spring up, with the prime intention of showing you an ad each time you "add your opinion to our bulletin board!" And sports-talk radio -- well, sports jerks are their bread and butter. The phone lines light up, people go off half-cocked in a way they never would if they were forced to first give their full name and address to the listening audience, and ratings peak.

Jerks mean so much money to the creators and syndicators of the "Tank McNamara" comic strip that they dedicated an entire day's strip not to the zany antics of their wacky characters, but to a full-strip entreaty to mail your "sports jerk" nominations for their big "sports jerk" award. Even now, a little box in each strip lets you know that it's not too late to tell 'em who makes your blood boil.

The problem is that the jerks everyone gets worked up about are often not nearly as bad as the media would like you to think. Rocker is a young man who hasn't learned self-control, sure, but those who have dealt with him personally attest to his actions telling a different story. And given a choice between believing words or actions, I'll choose the actions every time.

Where Griffey was concerned, at least one columnist saw fit to make up details of his supposed "last-minute" veto of a supposed Mets-Mariners "deal." The story was picked up by the wire, read ravenously by jerk-haters everywhere, and recycled to this day as a prime example that Griffey is a "jerk."

The problem is that there was no "last-minute" veto. Simply by picking up a newspaper the day before the "deal" was reached, both the M's and Mets would have known that they shouldn't even have been discussing one, much less announcing it to the press. It's even more embarrassing, however, when a member of the media hasn't even bothered to read his own paper before writing his column.

Where everything goes out of whack is when someone does something truly despicable, like Bobby Chouinard or Pedro Astacio (in fact, at this moment I imagine some readers saying to themselves, "Pedro Astacio?"), and nobody cares enough to editorialize.

You know why?

They're real jerks, not made-for-media jerks. We'd rather forget them. Most of us can't fathom doing what they've done.

Rocker and Griffey, on the other hand, are our own dark side. Rocker said the things that flash through even the most socially-conscious minds while we're in line at the bank or driving the car -- those antisocial thoughts that we honestly hate ourselves for even thinking. Now he's given us the opportunity to publicly hate those thoughts without implicating ourselves.

Griffey has the freedom we can only dream about. He's contractually allowed to play for any team he chooses, and it's not our city. He can specify that he only wants to remain a Mariner or become a Red (if only for a year), and both teams want him. Need him. We ache to be able to wield that kind of power in our careers, but have resigned ourselves to the fact that we never will. So when Griffey uses his power, we resent it.

We hate Rocker, Griffey, and other marginal "jerks" because it makes us feel better about ourselves. It's a national catharsis, but unfortunately it's at the expense of another person's life.

Acknowledge and move on.

 Item: Speaking of Astacio, there was no official announcement from Commissioner Selig regarding any sort of baseball sanction whatsoever for someone who has admitted to spousal abuse.

Is it because the court has taken care of things? Well, if Astacio attends all the anger-management classes he should have taken long ago, and doesn't get caught doing it again, in two years his record will show that he has always been a model citizen.

Honestly, I didn't expect Selig to hand down any punishment, because no potential revenue loss is expected. The reason Rocker's "hate speech" is punished but the Braves are allowed to go on with encouraging their fans to mock Native Americans is that Rocker could cost MLB money, while the Braves clean up on the royalties from those foam tomahawks.

At this point, I'm not sure I'd trust Selig to run a little league in a fair, above-board manner, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

Item: Our inside Yankee source, who happens to be Derek Jeter, says a long-term deal never existed. Thus, major news outlets are burned for the...er, I've lost count, but they've been burned by bad "inside" information so often it almost seems like baseball's GMs have decided to have some fun this winter. We're still transcribing our tapes from the winter meetings, but you should expect to see them in this space in, say, one week?

Michael Cox loves his beef and spice, and he can't understand why no team likes his idea of garlic kielbasa vendors in the stands. Suggest selling stinky gorganzola instead at mc@strikethree.com.

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