As you may know, Pat Jordan ain't no Rick Reilly. Jordan's profiles— from Roger Clemens, to Carlton Fisk, to O.J. Simpson, to Pete Rose Jr. — are all painstakingly excavated, analyzed and scrutinized through his head-first reporting. His stories reveal a darker, unflattering side of some — okay, most — of his subjects, but his technique is so refined it is more revelatory than gossipy. And although some of the stories are more than 30 years old, they feel remarkably timeless.

Here's a short interview with Pat Jordan that'll give you a little better idea of the type of writer — the type of man — behind some of these stories.

AJD: There seemed to be a time when sportswriters could befriend athletes — actually hang out with them, go to dinner with them, have a relationship that's convivial and not antagonistic. Are those days completely gone forever?

PJ: Gone forever. Now, you're lucky to get 20 minutes at their locker with everybody interrupting you. It's a big mistake on their part. Fans don't get to know them as people, to form a relationship with them as people, so they only know them as athletes and an image. See A Rod. Which is why fans delight in catching A Rod in gotcha moments with a stripper. These guys foster love-hate relationships with their fans because of the distance they maintain from them. If they let guys like me profile them, we could show fans their human side. Now, I was supposed to do a profile on Josh Beckett this spring, but he backed out of it. On one hand, I don't blame him. From his perspective, what does he have to gain? It's Beckett's prerogative, of course, but it would make him more human if I did a profile of him. Now fans just know him as a great pitcher, who's a sullen, red-ass, Texas boy. My profile would help him survive bad times in Boston when they come. But he can't think that far down the road.

AJD: Was there ever an athlete — either you've written about or just met casually — you perceived as an asshole who pleasantly surprised you?

PJ: Yes. Bo Belinsky (author's note: Bo Belinsky!). I thought he was a guy who pissed away his career, carelessly, but he was a man who was very sensitive, a good guy, who could never hurt anyone but himself.

AJD: You seem to have an admiration for players who are a little prickly, who have principles both on and off the field, like the piece on Carlton Fisk in your book. Do those athletes even exist anymore?

PJ: I don't know. I haven't interviewed such guys lately. Seaver, Fisk, they were men first, and athletes second. I admired them as men, and then, secondarily, as athletes. They had fucking standards. Maybe not my standards, but at least they had standards. They were AUTHENTIC. That's all i expect in a subject.

AJD: I found the story (Breakers West: Where The Kissing Never Stops) about the Williams sisters disturbing. It had this very incestuous vibe to it. You seemed to go out of your way to point out how their father wasn't the usual overbearing tennis father (in his mind, at least), but you had it peppered with those odd "I love you Daddy/I love you, Venus Williams" exchanges throughout. Were you genuinely freaked out by Richard Williams?

PJ: Second worst pathological liar i have interviewed. OJ was the first. Richard was a scary guy. A manipulator. He was not an authentic man.

AJD: You're married to Meg Ryan's mom. You did a piece slamming Meg because of some of things she'd said about your wife. Do you still have animosity toward her? Do you consider her, uh, a step daughter?

PJ: Technically, Meg is my step-daughter, even if she does refer to me in Hollywood as the Anti-Christ. But I hold no animosity toward her as long as she leaves her mother alone. I am known in Hollywood as Meg Ryan's mother's pit bull. No one fucks with my wife, especially not her kids. If Meg called her mother today and said she was sorry and she loved her, I'd be the first person to pick her up at the airport.

AJD: Obviously, Jose Canseco didn't appreciate the story you wrote about him. In fact, he (and his girlfriend!) pretty much discredited the whole thing by making it seem like you were an angry, bitter writer taking out your frustrations on him. How much of the version that you published on Deadspin do you think would've been in the piece had you actually spent some time with Canseco? Would an hour of his time really have changed the direction of the story that much? Or is Canseco just telling the truth again and you're just an angry, jealous man?

PJ: I certainly am not jealous of Jose. I never aspired to stupidity. But I was certainly pissed off at his dragging me to LA for three days and canceling our interview. He definitely would have come off better than he did if he'd have talked to me. Maybe he could have made himself more human in my eyes in a way he wasn't from a distance. His mistake.

AJD: Do you think the majority of sports writers are pussies?

PJ: Abso-fucking-lutely. Most have yet to grow pubic hair. They idolize and are resentful of jocks that have a talent they never had. They fawn over them one minute, and slam them the next. Very schizophrenic. I never admired athletes because I was one and knew just because we were athletes that didn't make us any better than anyone else. So I could throw a ball faster than a non-athlete, so what. Anyway, I admire athletes who are, again, AUTHENTIC. I am not a fan. I am a writer who appreciates authentic people, whether they are jocks, actors, politicians, or unknowns.

AJD:When was the last time you got into physical altercation with somebody?

PJ: I was 52. My wife and I were pedaling our bikes on the sidewalk on Fort Lauderdale beach. This big guy, maybe 220 lbs, 28 years old, was roller blading backwards toward us without looking. He clipped my wife's bike, almost spilling her to the sidewalk. When he passed me I said, "Hey, asshole, watch where you're going." So he skates back to me in a threatening way and says, "What did you call me?" I said, "Asshole." Now he's thinking, this is an old guy, but not that old, and then he slams into my wife's bike again and knocks her to the sidewalk. I leap off my bike on top of him and we're wrestling on the sidewalk. I have his head in a headlock, when my bicep rips, and I let go. He jumps off and skates furiously away, screaming back at me, that I was crazy. I told you, nobody fucks with my wife. Anyway, my bicep is still ripped and I never had it repaired. Long story, huh?

AJD: Does publishing a book like this depress you at all? Of course, it's gratifying, but at the same time, it's your life, or at least a huge chunk of it. Doesn't putting together a collection like this open you up to second guessing any of the choices you made?

PJ: Nothing depresses me, in my job, except when I'm not writing. Writing is an end for me, not a means. I aspire to nothing, ESPN-TV, fame, fortune, or anything, other than to be able to write each day and pay my bills. The collection has some of my best stuff, not all. I don't live in the past of everlasting regrets. Every story I do next, I think will be my best. That's what keeps me going. I am first, last, and always, a professional writer who lives to sit at the typewriter each morning. As for regrets, I have none, except for my sins, which will remain private as far as you're concerned. Certainly I have no regrets about my career. I never thought of my career as a career. It was God's gift. I fucked up the first gift God gave me, and hope He isn't still pissed off at me. Then He gave me a second career which I know I haven't fucked up. I do the best and truest work I can from story to story and let the rest of you decide whether their good, bad, or irrelevant. and you guys, Alex (Belth, the editor of Jordan's collection), and anyone else who reads my stuff is the point for me. I write for my readers, not me. If i don't please you, I failed. As for second-guessing, that's for losers. I live with my choices, even if I wish I hadn't made some of them. It's called, being a fucking man, guys.

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Did you just become aware of the fervor about your comments?

Yes, I've been on vacation, and just saw [Sunday]. I noted that many of the comments expressed disappointment. I wanted to clarify and amplify my points, not backtrack or apologize or anything.

All right. So did the Miami Herald story quote you correctly?

Yes, the quotes were accurate, but it didn't have everything I said. Barry Jackson [the reporter] is an good reporter, but that wasn't everything I said. He, and everyone who was at the [charity auction], knew that I wasn't condemning everyone.

So, feel free to clarify.

I don't have any problem at all with the mainstream media being challenged or supplemented by new media. No entity has a monopoly over good writing from a valid point of view. In that sense, the more the merrier. In fact, many bloggers, on numerous subjects, sports included, are talented, humorous and bring fresh perspectives.

My commentary was aimed solely at a portion of Internet sports discourse, an unfortunately large portion, that consists of nothing more than potshots, ad hominem arguments, ignorance and invective. No one who is familiar with the general tone of public discourse, whether it be sports, politics, whatever, can honestly deny that much. It comes from that direction.

I was absolutely not saying that most or all bloggers were losers. It just seems so often that commenters use insults in the place of arguments. Is there a lot out there that's also well-written? Or course. But forgive me for not placing the exact same value on an comment on a political blog that I would to something said by Ted Koppel. Sure, they have the equal value in a voting booth. But you have to assume that if you've done something reasonable well for an extended period of time, you have some notion of what you're talking about.

So you don't think anyone who writes a blog or comments online is a "get-a-life loser?"

Some have inferred that I have this elitist view, and that I think only people who have been somehow "certified" have the right to comment on sports. It shouldn't be confused with somehow being superior. If you opened up anything to large numbers of participants, you'd find some real gems in there. But you'd have a lot of muck to sift through. I do think newspapers' comment boards need to have the same sort of standard they'd have for a letter to an editor. It's possible they just don't have the manpower for that, though. I do think I made a good point [in the Herald story], but it's only part of what I think.

Do you read blogs?

I look at some baseball blogs, Baseball Prospectus and what-not. Sometimes I'll see something funny in The Onion, and I've recently been looking more at your site since your book came out. It's a generational thing, though. I would do well to download music, but that's just not something I do. It's not my natural first impulse. I still love to pick up a newspaper in the morning.

We think the tipoff for people being angry was the "basement" line. Everyone's a little tired of that line.

Yes, well, that might have lapsed a bit into cliche.

Friday afternoon, we accepted an invitation to MLB.com's offices in Manhattan for an interview with ... Harold Reynolds. This is the first SHOTY nominee we've interviewed — save for the imaginary conversations with Barbaro that go on in our head every day — and we talked for about an hour on a variety of topics, most of which involved ESPN and Reynolds' ongoing lawsuit against the company.

Reynolds couldn't get into detail on most aspects of the case, but he still had plenty to say. After the jump, dip inside the brain of the newest MLB.com employee. And we will say this: The man can hug.

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Mr. Reynolds, we won't lie: We're pretty surprised to be talking to you right now.

Hey, you guys have been real good to me.

Really? We think we once called you "Handsy" Reynolds.

I've been called a lot worse.

We think that if your firing would have happened five years ago, you would have gone quietly into the night, ESPN would have just moved on and no one would have ever thought about it again. You'd have just been gone. But today, the way they're used to running their business doesn't work anymore. People hold them more accountable than they used to, and when they shroud something in mystery, people want to know what happened. The day after your firing, "Harold Reynolds" was the No. 1 most searched item on Technorati. No offense, but you're not Britney Spears. Were you surprised by the mass interest in what had happened to you?

First off, I'm glad I'm not Britney Spears. And certainly none of those searches were done by me. As for being surprised, yes and no. Yes, because to me, I'm just Harold. But no, because ESPN, it's a huge entity. It's a huge monster. The day I was let go, with nothing said, no comment but "he's just no longer with the network," that piqued a lot of curiosity. Because of that, people were trying to find out what was going on.

You did an interview with The New York Post the day after you were fired where you just sounded confused.

That was an ambush. I just answered the phone, and the guys says, "I hear it's sexual harassment." I was like, 'Excuse me, who is this?' I wasn't ready to do an interview; I was still trying to figure out what the heck's going on.

And at that point, you had no idea you'd been fired for sexual harassment?

I found out solely through newspapers and your site. They never specified this is what it is. In the vernacular of the paperwork, it's actually "Not Following The Direction Of Production." But they never said that publicly. They just let me hang out there and get slaughtered.

To this day, of all the people you worked for at ESPN, the people who fired you, you still haven't talked to any of them about why you were fired?

Nobody in upper management. I've talked very briefly with a few different people I used to work with. I've searched for information just like anybody else. I didn't know what was in the complaint. We sent the labor board to go get [my personnel file and complaint], and they were denied. The state attorney general subpoenaed ESPN, and they just didn't turn it over. Finally, we got in front of the judge, and the judge turned over the personnel file. And that was just May 18. May 18 was the first time I had ever seen my personnel file and what any of the complaints were against me. Through a court order.

Do you still talk with any of the guys from the show?

Kurkjian and Peter (Gammons) have called, and I speak with them a lot. Ravech has tried to contact me a couple of times. The main people I worked with were Peter, Karl, Krukie and occasionally Kurkjian, and everybody's contacted me except for Kruk. I'm not gonna sit here and slam him, though.

I think what has happened with most of the people at ESPN is, because of the lawsuit, a lot of people are afraid to get in touch with me. It's not that they don't like me. I understand.

You were there for a long time.

Eleven years. I knew everybody from the janitor to the president. I felt like that was home for me. I understand if people don't get back at you.

It was tough to leave, because I went across every portion of ESPN, with Little League, and College, and Major League Baseball. That means studio and remote side. I knew thousands of people. It's difficult not being in touch.

Was there a fear, once all this went down, that you'd never work again?

I had to think about it, before I filed the lawsuit, and I came to the point that I was like, "You know what? I'm just not working anymore." And that was fine with me. To me, it's always been about clearing my name. I don't, to this day, feel like I was fired properly. I was wrongfully terminated, it was rush to judgment, they did not do a proper investigation. Had they done this the right way, we would have never been in this situation. I stand by that. I built my life for 30 years as a professional, whether it's in baseball or broadcasting, and to have that torn down, in one statement, by one person, I wasn't gonna stand for. This was my only recourse. I wanted to meet, and I wanted to sit down, and I didn't get any answers.

We've seen the court papers of what has been filed against you, and, not to make you get into specifics, but when you look at what some other ESPN personalities have been accused of, or what they've even admitted to ... why you? If these were all just misunderstandings, they could have had stronger cases against other people, if they wanted to make an example out of someone.

I won't get into specifics, but when you look at some of the other stuff people have said about other people there, it's pretty obvious that this situation was not fair to me. I will say that. They can read between those lines as well as you can. That's one of the main reasons I think I've got such a strong case. I was not treated fairly in comparison to some of the other things that have gone on in that place.

Talk about the day all this went down. Was it just HR in the room with you? Oh, and by "HR," I mean "human relations," not, you know, you.

It was Norby Williamson, Marcia Keegan and Steve Anderson. That's who was in the room, and that's who fired me. They called me in, and told me I was fired.

After you were fired, did you look around for other jobs immediately?

I talked to just about everybody in the industry. The first people who came to the forefront were the Mariners; I've always got a job there. I met with everyone. And every single one of them was like, "Well, let's see what happens with this ESPN business first." That's another reason I'm so grateful for MLB.com, to step up and say, "we'll give you a job right now." They know interviews like this are gonna have to happen. But when I met with other executives at other networks, they'd always ask immediately about the ESPN thing. After I tell them what happened, they're like, "That's it?"

Have you ever talked to any of the women who made accusations against you since they made them?

No. These weren't relationships. They could stand in front of me right now, and I wouldn't know who they are.

Do you still watch "Baseball Tonight?"

A couple of times. But it's hard. I feel like I helped build that show. It's tough to turn it on and see the show and not see me on it.

Do you think, generally speaking, that ESPN is a difficult place for women to work?

Anytime you have women in a sports environment, it's going to be difficult to them. They're just outnumbered; they become a minority. I think you have to be extra respectful to them and their position. You have to be more sensitive to it, because you never know how people will react to something.

Did you ever have any sexual harassment training at ESPN?

Nope, never. They put out that there were concerns of five women with incidents of misconduct, but this isn't something that happened in one incident. I never had training, I was never asked to go to training, though I think everybody else in the building probably had it.

Everybody but you?

I'm sure I wouldn't slip through the cracks now, after me, but yeah: It was just never offered to me.

Do you think, generally speaking, that ESPN is too powerful?

They're a powerful entity, there's no doubt about that. But I couldn't worry about that. But I needed to file this suit to file my name. Whether it would have been ESPN or anybody else. It had to be done.

Before this whole business, we never got the impression that you were one of the least popular ESPN broadcasters; there wasn't a site called "Fire Harold Reynolds" or anything. People like Kruk and Berman get it a lot worse than you ever did.

Man, you guys just kill Chris. Leather? Is that what it is? You're with leather?

Something like that. We actually have no problem with leather. It's one of our favorite materials. Anyway, you'd never had that much negative about you in the media, and then, suddenly, everything in the media about you was negative. That must have been disconcerting.

The biggest eye opener for me was that I never had enemies. My whole life, I was the guy who loved everybody, hugged everybody, said hi to everybody. When something like this happens, they come out of the woodworks. I'm like, "Man, people hate me." That hurts, you know? That's probably the biggest shocker of it all. I really was naïve to that side of things.

Did people get quiet when you walked in the room?

Oh, yeah. I'd walk into restaurant, and my wife would always get the "Oh, poor girl" looks from everybody. That's hard. That's been the most difficult part of the whole thing was seeing my wife see all the hurt she had to go through. We're pretty upbeat people. To have night when you were crying and you don't have direction, it's real hard. But it's been good for us, it's forged our relationship closer. Hell, we'd just been married a couple of years. It was like, "Hello, marry me" and then BLAM. But we'll weather the storm. Forget jobs, forget if I'm gonna work again, forget about how people who don't know me perceive me. What matters is what's happening at home. I sat down with my wife, explained to her what was going on and she said, "Let's go forward with the lawsuit." She backed me up, no matter how darts were thrown our way.

Talk about this new MLB.com thing. Do you have a contact all set? Is part of this a deal with the new baseball network that's coming in a couple of years?

It's a two year contract, and, as for the baseball network, that's something that we'd all have to address down the line. They don't have it under the same umbrella. In my eyes, I see them co-existing, but it's up for MLB to set up the difference. I'll be on five days a week after the All-Star break, and then it'll be two days a week in the offseason. I'm not taking this job because I couldn't wait to work again; it's an unbelievable opportunity. The reach here is greater. I'm not Internet savvy, so it kind of blows me away what people can get to on the Web. In my heart of hearts, I love to teach baseball. If I can get in people's homes and teach the game, and educated people on it, this is where I need to be.

Do you still live in Connecticut?

Yep, in West Harford. I'll come into the city twice a week, and we'll have everything done that can be posted for the rest of the week. We want to be as current as possible.

Have you lost any friendships because of this whole thing?

Naw, people know me. People who have been around me have never wavered. They know that if I had done anything, I would have said so. The real people around me ... well, I don't want to get into anything too philosophical.

The Web doesn't handle philosophy well.

Exactly. I'll get killed when this runs.

So we were wondering if you would give us a hug.

I don't think my lawyers would like that too much.

We promise not to file a complaint.

Sorry. Probably not a good idea.

Why did we decide to interview Rocker? Well, the interview took place just a day after Michael Richards' famed "fork up your ass" performance at The Laugh Factory in Los Angeles, and we thought maybe he could shed some light on the situation. He also is promoting, uh, something right now, his "Speak English" campaign, an attempt not to change his image but, you know, enhance it. It's clear Rocker would like to be a Fox News talking head, and he's in the process of writing a book expounding his worldviews. And also: We thought it would be fun to see what kind of drink Rocker would order. (Mandarin Absolute and Red Bull; not much of a surprise there.)

He was accompanied by his girlfriend, African-American model Alicia Marie (pictured), who chimes in occasionally during the interview. She's a lovely woman, and awfully nice. (She ordered a Diet Coke.) After the jump, our entire hour-long interview with Rocker, mostly unedited, except for when a question we asked made us sound like an idiot, in which case we edited it up to make ourselves look witty and charming. We were going to have a surreal picture of us, Rocker and Alicia to accompany this story, but we had a few too many Newcastles and forgot to take one. We're such an exceptional journalist.

It's long, but we hope you find it worth your while. Maybe. Enjoy.

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Hey, thanks for meeting up with me. Cheers. Welcome to New York. How long are you here?

Through Sunday, actually.

Where you having Thanksgiving?

At her parents' place (points at Alicia Marie).

Really? Uh, have you met her parents before?

Yeah. I've met the younger sister, and both parents. I've met her mom once, her dad twice and her younger sister went to dinner with us three weeks ago.

Uh ... do they like you?

Alicia chimes in: I was initially worried about my dad.

I can imagine.

Alicia: But my dad, like, loves him.
Rocker: Yeah, we all went out dinner and had a great time.

Really?

Yeah. They really like me. They're really nice people.
Alicia. I grew up in Connecticut. They're the only black Republicans on earth.

Did you guys really meet when John was pitching against me in Herald Square Bryant Park? I'm really pissed you struck me out, by the way. My excuse is that it was really cold outside.

Well, when it warms up, let's try it again. Yeah, you were wearing the Rick Ankiel jersey, right? Sorry about that. I don't know what happened to that kid. The first game he disintegrated was against us, actually, back in 2000. They ended up winning that game, though in the first three innings he had, like, eight walks. The media got on him so bad. After they beat us, they kept showing the highlights over and over. I guess he probably watched all the press about himself, and when he came back in Spring Training, that's all they could talk about.

Anyway, yeah, we met there. I haven't actually picked up a ball since that day.

Really? You haven't pitched once? Not even in your backyard or something? Do you miss it?

I miss parts of it. When I watch the playoffs I miss it, but when I watch Game 146 in the middle of August, I'm glad to be out at the beach instead. There's part you miss and parts you're happy are gone.

Do you still talk to any current players?

Yeah, tons. I just talked to Mark DeRosa, who just signed a big deal with the Cubs. I talk to Ryan Klesko a good bit. John Smoltz every once in a while, Dave Burba, Andruw Jones, Steve Woodard, he got married about a month ago.

What's your schedule a lot like now? You seem to be in New York a lot, with Alicia around.

I'm here at least twice a month. She's my main business up here, but I'm meeting with my literary agent. I think I found an editor we feel comfortable with editing. I do a lot of work with a venture capital guy here too, and I'm always doing radio interviews and what-not.

And you two met when she was interviewing you? Because I want to make it clear that I'm not hitting on either one of you.

Yeah, all of her questions were, "Do you have a girlfriend?" "Would you like my number?" I just looked down her shirt, saw what I needed to see and moved on. (Laughs.) I took a leap of faith, because she had a long coat on, and she could have had big birthin' hips or something.

I see.

But I found her, and here we are. The hips are fine.

Yes. Want another drink?

Yes please.

OK. Let's talk about the 7 train story, of course. What I find amazing about the aftermath of the story, and this is what I wrote in the Deadspin piece, was that Americans love second acts. No matter what a celebrity does, if they say they're sorry for it, and seem legitimately apologetic, we tend to root for them to recover, at least until they screw up again. But that never happened with you. You gave that interview, and from every day since then until now, you were The Racist. You never got a second act. I'm not saying you necessarily deserved one, but people usually don't deserve one. Why do you think that interview just set it all in stone like that? Did you ever try to resalvage your reputation? Are you still trying? Is that what the book is for?

Naw, I don't think the book will help with that, and I don't care. The book is more conservative Republican rantings. The Bill O'Reillys of the world, they will appreciate it, the Rush Limbaughs of the world will appreciate it, but, unfortunately, most members of the media - well, I don't know what you are politically.

I'm an agnostic. Politics terrify me.

Well, anyway, those liberal media people, they'll appreciate some things, but I am a Republican. I'm not Republican in everything - I mean, look at my girlfriend - and I'm not a huge pro-lifer, but I think 95 percent-plus of the media is liberal, and they see me as the antichrist of liberal views. It's much easier for them to just keep piling on than to look closer and realize that, hey, we might have been wrong about this guy.

It seemed that people felt like you were an outlet for their own sublimated racism. They were like, "Well, we must not be too bad, because we're not nearly as bad as this guy."

It was much easier to label me than sit down like you're doing and actually talk to me. It's a lot easier to label and move on. There are two or three hot-button issues in this country that people feel like they need eradicate, and racism is one of them. So when you have someone like me who has said something, or has betrayed themselves to be such, if you can label them as The Racist, well, Katie bar the door, because we're going after him. Liberal America, which is probably 90 percent plus of the media, that is their end-all, be-all of expressing themselves as liberals. They're all "happy, everybody get along, everybody mesh into one big happy union." When these comments were made years and years ago, it became easier to label than to sit down and wonder, "OK, what is really going on in this guy's head." That's what a huge purpose for this book is going to be. Yeah, these things were said, but these were the 45 minutes worth of context that surrounded those things that were said. You can make anything look bad when you just strip it out.

To be fair, you are promoting a campaign called "Speak English." That's hardly the type of thing that's going to change your image. You did choose that. That wasn't a misquote.

I'm not looking to pop any bubbles about myself; people are gonna think what they're gonna think. I came to that realization about a year and a half ago. I was doing Hannity and Colmes, and because of that SI interview, I had been tiptoeing around every interview I did just to make sure I didn't say the wrong thing. I did that throughout that whole interview, and on the way home, I realized, "You know, I'm retired. You can't get me. You can't picket where I work or play. You can't fire me. I don't have to be politically correct anymore." I realized I didn't have to worry about whether or not the minorities were mad at me. If I wanna say it, it's gonna get said. If you wanna not like me because of it, then oh well.

Alicia, I have to ask: Do you agree with all his political views?

Alicia: Well, there are many things we disagree on, yes, but at least I see where he's coming from. I feel like part of my job with him is to help people get past this whole "He's John Rocker" thing, because anything that comes out of his mouth is going to be misconstrued, no matter what he says. I want to help facilitate that.

Rocker: Well, it's not like it's her job or anything. It's not like I said, "Well, I need to hire a black girlfriend to make me look better."

People have said that.

Yeah, she's gotten lots of emails. I wish she weren't so accessible on the Web, actually. Honestly, I don't understand why people are so interested in me, and what I'm doing, and who I'm dating. But people mostly misinterpret the fact that I just don't care. If I were still playing and needed to worry about my image, I might pull some shit like this, dating a black girl, just to throw the old Jedi mind trick on people. I'm out of the public eye now. People's opinions aren't that important to me, I'm not gonna do something like this just to change the opinion of people I don't care about.

When you guys walk down the street, and people see that you're John Rocker, do they say anything?

I don't ever make eye contact with people on the street. I've become like a New Yorker in that way. People want to say, "Hey, has John Rocker changed, has he turned over a new leaf?" I haven't changed at all. I don't understand why it's so hard for journalists to admit that I haven't changed; they were just wrong. Maybe they made me change by writing an article or something. That song by Joe Walsh, "Life's Been Good To Me So Far," that's totally how it is. I haven't changed.

Just to ask for the millionth time: Do you regret the interview? You didn't really pitch much after that.

If it would have been portrayed in the correct version, no. The way the sucker punch was done, yeah, it was horseshit. Every dark cloud has a sun behind it, though; there's a lot of things I can do now that I wouldn't have been able to do had it not been for that article. It's opened a lot of doors. I know a lot of players who had a lot better careers than me, but when they retired, you never see or hear from them again. For some reason, people still have interest in me. Without that article, I wouldn't be writing a book. When you go into a restaurant and the maitre'd says, "Come on in, sit down," that's when you don't mind it. When you're at Bungalow 8, and the bouncer won't let you in because he's Dominican, well, that's when it's not so good.

That really happened?

Yeah, even though two or three of my best friends are Dominican or Puerto Rican. And her, of course. (points to Alicia)

Did any players ever give you any crap about the interview?

Not really. Most players have been misquoted before, so they know how it goes. It happens on some scale to pretty much everybody.

So when I told most of my friends who don't know anything about sports that I was interviewing you, they all knew who you were and wanted me to ask you about Michael Richards.

Well, it was bad, but I bet he ends up getting work in a few years. That's not what happened to me. People still bring it up today all the time. People act like they're gonna "get me" or something. Journalists act like they're the first person to ask me about racism. I apologized and everything, but it didn't stick. I think it's because I was a white man from the South. My favorite show is South Park, and those guys are probably liberals, they're from Canada, but their perception is that the South is dumb, ignorant hicks. They don't see it as the cultural center that it really is. The liberal side of things, they try to pin the South as the racist place in the world. We can connect John Rocker to the South, which equals racist, which equals John Rocker is a racist. The South is just a bunch of fucking racists, that's what they want to see it as, and I just got caught up in that. Michael Richards is lucky he's not from the South. If I'd been Ozzie Guillen, no one would have cared. But I'm not. I'm from the South. It's just a gross double standard. I have a chapter in my book about double standards.

How far along with the book are you?

I've got about 70 pages written. I've put it on hold for a bit until I find a publisher. When the deal is done, I'll finish it up over the course of the next couple of months. That's the thing, though: When people have an agenda, that's all that matters. Jeff Pearlman is who he is: A liberal Jew from New York. He's one of their own, who spent a couple of hours with me, pulled things out of context, and you're trying to create a persona of an individual when you don't know them. You look at Michael Irvin, and Michael's a friend of mine -

You're friends with Michael Irvin? Really?

Yeah.

I would like to watch you two talk to one another.

He's a very nice guy. I see him at a lot of parties. Anyway, it's not like when he goes on to do his morning show, people don't call him the crackhead womanizer, though he's been caught twice with cocaine and prostitutes. I've heard from people who have worked with him on movie sets that it's not a once-in-a-while type of thing, that it's more of a lifestyle thing. So I sit back amazed that people still don't give me any slack on it.

I'm not sure how long your friendship with Michael Irvin is going to last.

No, we're friends, we're friends. Honestly, people in this world just need to stop being so sensitive. Sure, if you go take a lead pipe to someone because they're a different ethnicity than you, then yes, you've got problems. But someone's gonna call me a cracker or a honky? Come on. I'd think the Islamic religion is the most sensitive group of people ever. These people lose their minds over anything. I'd like to see someone make a comment about Muslims, Muslims get mad, and have the person say, "Take it, and ram it right up your ass. Get pissed all you want, I'm not taking it back." You see people ripping on Jesus or the Virgin Mary or Jewish religious stuff, and people can take it. Get on Muslims, though, they get on you quick. At some point, someone needs to just be irreverent. I like Carlos Mencia, I like Dave Chappelle, they can dish it out and have fun with it. The crying and bitching and whining for people to not express their dislike of you, it's no way to bring people around to you.

Do you think if the story hadn't come out, you'd still be playing?

I don't think so. When I played in Long Island last year, I stunk, man. It had been two years since my shoulder surgery, and I was throwing 88 mph on a good day. It would take me 40 minutes to get loosened up for one inning. The shoulder would have blown out regardless. In 2000, I had an ERA under 3.00. The next year I led the league in saves. But then I got traded to Cleveland, and I was pissed to leave Atlanta. I pitched well for the first month I was there, then I stunk, and then I went to Texas, and I was kind of pouting.

If it hadn't been for the story, you might have stayed in Atlanta.

Yeah. [Braves general manager] John Schuerholz traded me. He's a real asshole. I'm gonna absolutely crucify him in my book. The credibility that guy receives for the Atlanta Braves dynasty ... he is an imbecile. Every player who took that team to the playoffs were people who were already there. All his good acquisitions were no-brainers. Scheurholz tries to take all the credit, but he's a complete moron. It's amazing he gets so much credit for it. We had a bad arbitration case, he and I. He just sat there and motherfucked me to death, you suck, you're horrible, and I lost the case. I never spoke to him again. He'd walk right by me and say, "Hi, John," and I'd just ignore him. He has the worst case of Little Man Syndrome I've ever met. He's about 5-foot-5. He's a piece of shit.

I don't know why I'm asking this, but what do you think of the war?

I'd like to go into politics someday. I'm a little young now, but I think I'd be good for it and people would get behind me. I'm not a George Bush fan, but I'd like to see him work with the left a little more. But we need to help those people. They were living under the iron fist of a dictator, and we have to help them. But I don't know. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't type thing. But it's Islam and the Middle East. It's not gonna get better.

Thank you for your time, sir.

Thank you. Congratulations on your Cardinals, by the way.

Thank you.