Hey, who’s that foul-mouthed guy in a Braves cap fighting all the purple-haired kids and foreigners for a seat on the No. 7 train?
John Rocker, that’s who!
The New York-hating hurler says he’ll ride the subway to Shea Stadium alongside all the people he insulted when the Atlanta Braves come to play the Mets a week from tomorrow.
“The first day I get to New York, I’m getting on the [No.] 7 train,” the Braves reliever told USA Today Baseball Weekly.
“I’m taking it to Shea Stadium. I won’t be in a cab. I won’t be on the bus. I’ll be on that train.
“And I’m looking forward to it.”
Rocker said he’s ready to face rabid Mets fans at Shea – and angry New Yorkers on the subway.
“I’m not scared,” he told the magazine.
“What are they going to do? I mean, I’m not going to approach anybody or go out of my way to talk to someone, but if someone wants to talk to me, that’s fine.”
Rocker landed in a mound of trouble last December, when Sports Illustrated printed an interview in which the loud-mouthed lefty heaped vitriol on the Big Apple.
“Imagine having to take the 7 train, looking like you’re [in] Beirut next to some kid with purple hair, next to some queer with AIDS, right next to some dude who got out of jail for the fourth time, right next to some 20-year-old mom with four kids. It’s depressing,” Rocker spewed.
But he was just getting started.
“The biggest thing I don’t like about New York are the foreigners,” Rocker told Sports Illustrated.
“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 the hell did they get in this country?”
After the story came out, Rocker was suspended for a month and fined $20,000 by commissioner Bud Selig. The penalty was later cut on appeal to two weeks and a $500 fine.
Rocker apologized numerous times, but last month, he was fined $5,000 by the Braves for allegedly threatening the Sports Illustrated reporter who wrote the story.
Rocker was then sent down to the minors – making his arrival in New York for the upcoming four-game series appear unlikely. But he was recalled last week when another Braves pitcher was injured.
So now he’s coming – and, Rocker says, bring on the boo-birds.
“I’m not scared, I’m not intimidated in the least,” he said.
“Come on, what are they going to do to me but boo me? I hope they do.
“The worst thing they could do to me there is have no reaction. No reaction at all. That’s the thing that would p – – – me off the most. I’d hate that,” he said.
“I want to get booed. That fires me up. Look at what happened last year in New York. I didn’t give up an earned run at Shea or Yankee Stadium in the playoffs.
“Those people bring out the best in me.”