Rocker OK After Wreck
Totals his car in Atlanta
ATLANTA
He's always been a crash test dummy to Mets fans, but Braves closer John Rocker was one for real Monday, smashing into an 18-wheel flat bed tractor trailer in his white 1998 Corvette on his way to Turner Field for an appointment with the Atlanta trainer.
The car was totaled, but Rocker was not hurt and he pitched last night, allowing the Mets an unearned run in the 10th inning that would have made him the losing pitcher if the Braves not tied the score in the bottom of the inning.
John Rocker leaves the field after retiring the Mets in the 10th inning.
"I'm going to sleep for three days before we go off to the fire of the World Series," Rocker said after the Braves beat the Mets 10-9, in the 11th inning.
Rocker allowed only one hit in two innings of relief � his sixth straight appearance in this series and 12th straight in the NLCS, dating back to last season. He was greeted by an adoring ovation, a much different response than he got in New York.
No one was hurt in the smash-up and no charges will be filed.
"He's 100 percent," manager Bobby Cox said. "Nothing has changed."
"Everything's fine," Rocker said of the collision.
It's likely that Cox' blood pressure did rise, momentarily, however. Cox first heard about the smash-up when he got a message from Braves GM John Schuerholz and it sounded bad.
"Initially, it didn't sound too good, that he was going 140 miles an hour and totaled out his car," Cox said. "I still don't know. I just saw John. I still didn't ask him. He said he was 100 percent. I didn't ask him about the accident. I think it tore off his right-front fender."
Schuerholz called the accident a "fender-bender" and said, "There's a lot of misinformation" regarding what happened. He didn't elaborate.
Rocker, 25, has made as much of a name for himself with his blazing mouth as he has with his blazing fastball.
He ripped Mets fans throughout the series and responded to vulgarities from the stands with a few of his own.
After Sunday's bitter 15th-inning loss to the Mets in Game 5, he said Mets fans were "less than human."
He's also called them "stupid a----."
Oddly enough, the chatty closer refused to speak to reporters about the wreck before last night's game, saying, "No, no, no," when a Braves spokesman approached him with requests for interviews.
He left the field last night after batting practice through an exit in the right-field fence, avoiding reporters waiting by the dugout, the players' usual exit.
"There was a lot more pressure down here," Rocker said after the game.
"If they had squeezed out this one, winning two extra- inning games in a row, no doubt they would have had the momentum."
Rocker was driving about 10 miles north of Turner Field on Georgia 400, a major toll road that runs from the Atlanta's northern suburbs to the heart of the city, when he swerved to miss a truck and hit the truck, wire reports said. The hood of his 'Vette went under the rear of the flat-bed trailer.
The driver, Robert Thames of Hampton, Ga., said he heard Rocker's brakes screeching and then Rocker rammed into the truck from behind.
"By the time I pulled off to the side, he was left in the middle," Thames said. "He was all right, but it totaled the car. I was in a little daze. I'd never been in a serious accident before."
Cox said he thought the accident had happened near a toll booth.
"The only thing I know is that it wasn't very bad," Cox said.
"He is not even sore. He's fine. I've been in car wrecks before and, generally, you're so sore you can't move for a week. But he's absolutely 100 percent."
Cox said he was in a car accident when he was young in which a few people died. "We were almost killed," Cox said. "We weren't, nobody in our car, but we were sore for a long time and couldn't hardly walk.
"He (Rocker) walked away and he's fine."
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