3.06.2006
Posted At the Risk of Pigeonholing Ourselves
That Deadspin's Will Leitch rose early this morning to take some cuts against John Rocker is impressive, inasmuch as Leitch's job is to entertain and this, well, is a damn entertaining premise.
That Leitch uses his lengthy recap of the experience to work in the question, largely unasked in today's sports media, of why Rocker remains such a vilified character because of his comments in an article that ran in Sports Illustrated seven years ago...that's impressive as well. (The answer, you ask? We need demons in the public eye to make us feel better about ourselves and our own, milder prejudices. For Exhibit B, see last night's Oscar winner. Oh, and it doesn't help that Rocker may be one of those guys who is just a little hard to like, but we digress.)
More impressive than that? If you look at the pictures, you'll notice that Leitch, an avowed St. Louis Cardinals fan, showed up in a Rick Ankiel jersey. If we weren't drooling with admiration for all things Deadspin before, suffice it to say we are now. (Envy, too, since we've always wanted one of those, or more specifically one of the batting practice t-shirts that are way more reasonably priced, and here Leitch is, parading it around like it's nothing. But we digress again.)
For kicks/archiving purposes, here's a link to what appears to be an old New York Times piece on the post-meltdown Ankiel. Our unhealthy fascination with the life of a once-talented pitcher with Steve Blass syndrome shows no signs of remission. That is all.
That Leitch uses his lengthy recap of the experience to work in the question, largely unasked in today's sports media, of why Rocker remains such a vilified character because of his comments in an article that ran in Sports Illustrated seven years ago...that's impressive as well. (The answer, you ask? We need demons in the public eye to make us feel better about ourselves and our own, milder prejudices. For Exhibit B, see last night's Oscar winner. Oh, and it doesn't help that Rocker may be one of those guys who is just a little hard to like, but we digress.)
More impressive than that? If you look at the pictures, you'll notice that Leitch, an avowed St. Louis Cardinals fan, showed up in a Rick Ankiel jersey. If we weren't drooling with admiration for all things Deadspin before, suffice it to say we are now. (Envy, too, since we've always wanted one of those, or more specifically one of the batting practice t-shirts that are way more reasonably priced, and here Leitch is, parading it around like it's nothing. But we digress again.)
For kicks/archiving purposes, here's a link to what appears to be an old New York Times piece on the post-meltdown Ankiel. Our unhealthy fascination with the life of a once-talented pitcher with Steve Blass syndrome shows no signs of remission. That is all.
