Intensity a lifelong trait for Rocker
No change-up: Aggressive approach the norm for Braves closer, whether he's facing a wild dog or rabid fans.
She calls it fearless confidence. And she saw what it could do long before the name of her son, John Rocker, became a household word after he barked back at New York baseball fans.
The volatile and outspoken Braves closer was 15 when he and his mother, Judy Rocker, walked their golden retriever Casey down their street in Macon and a Rottweiler burst from a neighbor's garage and tore into Casey's ear.
Without hesitation, John reached down, lifted Casey over his head and started yelling at the Rottweiler. A neighbor intervened and drove the Rottweiler off by spraying it with a garden hose.
John Rocker survived that incident unscathed --- just as he did last weekend in New York, where the Braves were trying to fight to a fifth World Series berth this decade.
But back then, he had yet to learn whether the bark or the bite is worse. He still does.
Rocker has gone from being one of the most surprising baseball stories of the season --- stepping in for the injured Kerry Ligtenberg and becoming one of the dominant closers in the game --- to being one of the loudest. Going against the usual Braves grain, Rocker spoke out against Mets fans for their taunts and their jeers. "To hell with Mets fans," he said, and he called them "stupid."
For three days during the National League Championship Series, Rocker heard it and felt it from Mets fans. They booed him constantly, threw objects at him as he ran from the bullpen and read headlines referring to him as the "Mouth of the South," "King of Trash Talk" and "Punk Rocker."
He managed to thrive in that environment, pitching in all three games there and allowing only two runs on John Olerud's bases-loaded chopper. That he did so wasn't exactly a surprise to his mother, who knows quite a bit about her son's quick temper, where he got it and how it works.
During Rocker's sophomore year at First Presbyterian Day School, he was pitching in the championship game of an all-star tournament in Dalton. Rocker, who had been saved for the championship game and was wild because of it, started the game by throwing 12 balls in a row. He heard about it from the opponents' dugout.
Rocke looked over and yelled back. Then he struck out the side and proceeded to win the game.
"Most people think it's anger or hostility that drives him," Judy Rocker said. "He's a very intense person, a perfectionist. He came out of the womb like that. There's something about John, a fearless confidence."
It's in his actions and his words.
"If you get a haircut," Judy Rocker said, "when you really don't want to know if he doesn't like it, don't ask him."
Judy Rocker never said anything to her son about keeping his mouth shut during the Mets series. In her eyes, he's a man now and is free to make his own decisions. Plus, she remembers him coming home from New York last summer distraught over hearing fans chant what they would do to players' children.
"It makes me proud for him to stand up and say what he believes in, but in a way it concerns me," Judy said. "I don't think he understands there are people out there who will really hurt him. John doesn't always know how to pick his battles."
Despite all the negative attention, and some discouragement from his manager, Rocker doesn't think he made a mistake by lashing out at the Mets fans. But he's not planning another round of verbal shenanigans for the Yankees fans when he heads back to New York during the World Series.
"We beat the Mets 9 of 12 times (in the regular season), and their fans still didn't give us any respect," Rocker said. "Yankee fans aren't like that. . . . I'm just glad my mother wasn't there to hear what they said about her."
They heard enough talk back home.
Some friends of the Rocker family were at a meeting in Macon last week in which somebody got to gabbing about how John Rocker got his hot head from his father, Jake. One of Judy Rocker's closest friends laughed and then interrupted:
"I've known Jake and Judy Rocker for 25 years," the friend said. "And it's not Jake."
Judy Rocker taught school for more than 10 years. She remembers one incident with a seventh-grader who stood up in class and talked back to her. The student said his parents would sue her if she made him go to the office to get paddled. She took him out in the hall and gave him a piece of her mind. She had no more trouble from him.
She was 25 then, the age her son turned on Sunday.
"I know how my life has changed," Judy said. "It's no fun for it to be in the national media that a whole city hates you. I told John, 'You'll have to hit a bunch of brick walls. That's the only way I've ever learned. If Dad and I say cool your jets, I don't know how much that would mean. I'd still do things my way.'"
His way for now is to suck it up and move on, not asking for any apologies and not giving any.
"The people that don't like me are the people I don't want to like me," said Rocker, who lives in Buckhead and dates an Atlanta woman.
"People who throw D-cell batteries at you and water bottles and cups of beer --- being a fan favorite for that kind of person doesn't interest me. . . . If you like me, good. If you don't, 'Oh, well. I didn't know you before all this happened.' "
After the last day of his first regular season as the Braves' closer, John Rocker walked out of Turner Field about an hour after the game. His parents were waiting to take a family picture for the church directory in Macon. Judy Rocker had made arrangements for her brother-in-law to shoot a picture of them in the media parking lot. But a pack of fans came running for Rocker in the parking lot.
Judy Rocker caught herself saying, tight-lipped, "Do y'all mind?" But she softened after her son pulled away in his car and a young girl handed a T-shirt to Jake Rocker.
Earlier in the summer, Braves relievers made up T-shirts in honor of Rocker that read, "I know the guy who throws 100." This shirt read, "I love the guy who throws 100."
Judy Rocker told Jake she was keeping it.
"That quick move when he's tired, that angry demeanor, that's going to pass," Judy said. "That fearless confidence will stay there, and that will take him a long way."
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