Someone at the Daily Caller had a good idea: call John Rocker, the retired former Atlanta Braves relief pitcher, and ask him if he supports Donald Trump. As luck would have it, John Rocker indeed supports Donald Trump. “I think he has really woken America up,” Rocker tells the Caller’s Scott Greer.

Rocker is best known—really, at this point, only known, if he is known at all—for saying this, in 1999:

John Rocker has opinions, and there’s no way to sugarcoat them.They are politically incorrect, to say the least, and he likes to express them.

—On ever playing for a New York team: “I would retire first. It’s the most hectic, nerve-racking city. Imagine having to take the [Number] 7 train to the ballpark, 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 who just got out of jail for the fourth time right next to some 20-year-old mom with four kids. It’s depressing.”

—On New York City itself: “The biggest thing I don’t like about New York 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 the hell did they get in this country?”

These comments, as you can imagine, made quite an impression at the time. Hillary Clinton, then running to be one of New York’s senators, officially condemned them—and so did Rudy Giuliani.

But how does Rocker feel about New Yorkers—like Mr. Trump—today? According to the Caller, he’s come around, sort of:

“[New Yorkers] are always striving for the best. ‘We want to be the best.’ The best. It can get a little obnoxious and arrogant but at the same time, it can be a good thing,” Rocker said. “Yes it’s a bit of a racket living in New York because everything is so expensive but people who live there, they love it and they’re willing to work damn hard and get callouses on their hands and elbow grease on their elbows just to live there, and I think that’s very commendable in a lot of areas.”

I guess the fact that John Rocker’s problems with New York City have shifted from “queers with AIDS” and “foreigners” to “everything is so expensive” represents something of a victory for political correctness, or possibly just gentrification.

Images via Getty.