Courtesy Atlanta Journal Constitution

(January 26, 2009) Former Atlanta Braves player John Rocker was ejected from the W Buckhead hotel’s grand opening late Thursday night after verbally assaulting local sports talker Steak Shapiro.

Hotel security guards escorted Rocker from the premises after he got into a screaming match and hurled ethnic slurs at 790 the Zone’s Shapiro upstairs in the hotel’s Whiskey Blue nightclub, a spokeswoman said.

According to witnesses at the party, Rocker insulted Shapiro repeatedly during the altercation, using various vulgarisms.

Over the years, Shapiro on his show has publicly taken Rocker to task numerous times for his behavior.

Nine years ago this month, Rocker was embroiled in a national controversy after an interview with Sports Illustrated in which he made statements about playing in New York. In the article, he slammed foreigners, gays and the city generally.

“Basically, last night, John proved he was everything I’ve said he was over the years,” Shapiro said Friday. “I saw him staring me up and down. I told him, ‘John, let’s be civil here, that was all a long time ago.’ He told me, ‘It wasn’t that long ago, mother [expletive]. And right away, he pulled out the ‘Jew’ card.”

Whiskey Blue representative Juliet Horn confirmed that Rocker was escorted out of the nightclub after making “inappropriate comments to one of our guests.”

Whiskey Blue owner Rande Gerber was at the hotel for the opening.

Shapiro was a guest of Mit Shah, one of the hotel’s developers. It was immediately unclear how Rocker gained entrance into the club. A hotel rep said Rocker was not on the guest list.

The hotel’s Market restaurant general manager A.D. Allushi said he got between the men in hopes of defusing the argument.

“But I’ll be honest, I only come up to John’s chest,” Allushi said Friday. “Both of those guys are a lot bigger than me. I’ve known John for many years since he was a customer of mine at Bluepointe. He’s always been a very cordial guy. I think last night had more to do with [Rocker and Shapiro’s] past history.”

On Friday, Rocker did not immediately reply to an e-mailed request for comment.