How’d you like to be in charge of making John Rocker act nice? He remains persona non grata here, especially among single mothers and kids with purple hair, thanks to his comments in 1999, after the tempestuous Braves-Mets playoff series. Last year, playing for a Long Island minor-league team, he said he’d taken more abuse than Jackie Robinson. But he’s been in New York recently promoting a Spike TV reality show, and there’s been no meltdown. What gives? Thank his very own Power Girl, native Brooklynite Debi Curzio. “I don’t think John knew what a PR person was; he just lumped us all into ‘media people,’ and he was not too fond of them,” she says. He’s a handful: Rocker is the only client listed on her Website. She admits she’s not looking for him to be liked in New York so much as tolerated, describing his reputation as “engraved in stone,” and her job as “getting John back on the map with as little media pressure as possible.”

Related:

• Archive: “Intelligencer”
• Articles by Will Leitch
• Table of Contents: May 1, 2006 issue of New York | Subscribe!