John Rocker, the former Braves closer best remembered for a 1999 interview in which he admitted, “I’m not a very big fan of foreigners” — among other hateful comments — is out of the spotlight but not in any way done making controversial statements about baseball.

Rocker’s latest? He told CBS radio in Cleveland that the sport could benefit from more widespread performance-enhancing drug use.

At the end of the day when people are paying their $80, $120 whatever it may be, to buy their ticket and come watch that game, it’s almost like the circus is in town. They are paid to be entertained. They wanna see some clown throw a fastball 101 mph and some other guy hit it 500 feet. That’s entertainment. You’re paying to be entertained…. The best tests out there, the ones the Olympics use, can only test for 500 molecular combinations of 50,000 possible combinations. … They’re going to cost ya’, but the guys who want them can certainly pay for a chemist to build them.

Say what you will about John Rocker — seriously, say what you will about John Rocker — he’s not wrong on a couple of counts here.

For one thing, high-end performance-enhancing drugs will always be ahead of the organizations that test for them. For as hard as leagues try to prevent athletes from cheating with banned substances, someone will always find a way around the rules until new rules catch up.

For another, it would definitely be entertaining to “see some clown throw a fastball 101 mph.” That’d be some clown! Think of how hard he could throw pies!

(Thanks to Big League Stew for calling our attention to this story).