JOHN ROCKER SEEMED to be going for some sort of record—how many bigoted remarks one person could make in a single magazine interview. "The biggest thing I don't like about New York," he told the reporter, "are the foreigners. I'm not a very big fan of foreigners. You can walk an entire block in Times Square and not hear anybody speaking English. Asians and Koreans and Vietnamese and Indians and Russians and Spanish people and everything up there. How . . . did they get in this country""

Rocker, a relief pitcher for the Atlanta Braves, was not finished. He wanted to explain why he would never play baseball for a New York team. "Imagine having to take the . . . train to the ballpark," he said, "looking like you're [riding through] Beirut next to some kid with purple hair next to some queer with AIDS right next to some dude...