Talking Trash Part 1 - Rocker, Ole Miss and the Big Orange

About a decade ago, the Atlanta Braves’ hot new relief pitcher John Rocker kicked off his new career and his first big crack at major sports media coverage in an interesting way. He put his foot in his mouth so hard it came out the back of his head and hit a few people in the process.

I’m not going to cough up quotes. But anyone who remembers what he said in his first big interview with Sports Illustrated magazine might recall the bad press around his words, which were an unintelligible, judgmental assembly of uninformed jibes about New York City and New Yorkers.

Some people were offended. I wasn’t but I did think Rocker was an idiot, for at least no other reason than bungling his first chance to speak publicly to national sports media and more importantly the fans. Instead of nailing it like a professional, he wrecked it by sounding like a hooded cretin.

I doubt that Rocker meant to use his interview with SI as an opportunity to showcase personal prejudices, which may or may not have been that deep anyhow. Tongue tied and his brain shutting off, I think Rocker just got caught up in the moment, fumbling his true intention, which was nothing more than to talk a little trash about his team’s rivals, the New York Mets.

Rocker loved pitching for the Braves, and loved Atlanta. He was a local boy who loved his clan so much so that he took it upon himself, alone, to carry the burden of denigrating Atlanta’s arch rivals, their fans, and the city they play and live in, leveraging every offensive stone he could throw.

Ultimately, Rocker’s intent was noble, but his delivery was poor. Noble, if you think talking trash about a rival sports team is a fair enterprise. I must admit that trash talk is one thing that I and John Rocker share. And the fact is that we share it with the rest of the world.

I’ve talked trash about rival sports teams ever since I was a kid. If you are committed sports fan in any form, you have talked trash too.

Clearly, sports trash talk is more of an art than a science, and a lot of it is tied in with good old fashioned sectional conflict, in the Civil War sense.

The Braves/Mets rivalry was a good example of this, as two clubs with riled up fans (who were not local rivals per se) competed in the same league for the same prize: a crack at the World Series.

But local rivalries --or the “derby”, as the local match up is called in some parts of the world-- cook up the best trash talk and some of the best names used to denigrate the other side, all in good fun of course. Among some of the really good ones:

Massholes, used to describe the Boston Red Sox fans, and New England Patriots fans, who are chiefly one in the same, by New Yorkers primarily.

Cheeseheads, used to describe Green Bay Packers fans, by Chicagoans. Wisconsin has a lot of cheese, you know.

But back to the derby…

The first time I ever experienced local derby trash talk en masse was at age 18 attending my first high stakes college football game. It was a Southeastern Conference match up, when Mississippi (or “Ole Miss”) played Tennessee at the Liberty Bowl in Memphis. This game, technically a home game for Tennessee, was a big deal since the winner would clinch the division and play in the Sugar Bowl.

The game was moved to Memphis, which is closer to Ole Miss, in order to accommodate a much bigger crowd and a live national broadcast by CBS on a Saturday night. Anticipating a long shot Sugar Bowl trip, Ole Miss fans brought sugar cubes and blasted from their tail gate vehicles “Pour Some Sugar on Me” by Def Leppard.

The sugar cubes found their alternate purpose as fans flicked them onto the sidelines and pelted the mobile CBS camera men.

Other Ole Miss supporters, dressed up in their coat and tie combos, had brought orange slices to toy with. I remember seeing a Tennessee player going out for a warm up pass, and taking an orange slice right in the face mask.

The symbolism of the oranges was tied to the old pejorative tagline Ole Miss fans made up about Tennessee that “Nothing sucks like a Big Orange.”

But the Big Orange was everywhere. That is, tens of thousands of Tennesseans, dressed in blinding traffic-sign orange sweatshirts, were there filling two thirds of the stadium, howling as you’d think people from the Smokey Mountains would do.

After Ole Miss blew the game, thanks to their punter’s hesitation and a blocked kick that was returned for a touchdown, I left the Liberty Bowl with my dad, a quiet guy who had never been to a Southern college football game before. I think he felt threatened just a bit.

Heading toward the parking lot, we were accosted by loud and taunting, yet non-violent Big Orange folks chanting “Go to Hell Ole Miss, Go to Hell!”

Tennessee was the favorite in that game, and they won it as everyone had expected them to. But the Big Orange must have been miffed simply by the thought that some other college team might take a shot at their crown in the SEC.

For that reason alone, talking trash seemed the only appropriate remedy.

Since I can’t make it back for the Ole Miss/Big Orange game this weekend, I’ll have to settle. Instead it will be a Thanksgiving visit home, with a chance to cheer my old high school football team in the big game against the cross town scum.

Sorry about that. As an adult, I’ll have to try to behave myself during my trip, but sports trash talk runs deep and old habits die hard. Forgive me.