Hey all,
During the conversation with Dejan Kovacevic last night, Dejan accused a Bucs Dugout poster of being former Pirates post-game radio host Rocco DeMaro. Let's be clear about this: Every possible piece of evidence I can find indicates that this person is not Rocco DeMaro. I'm able to see the email addresses you all use to register for this website, and the commenter in question registered with an email address associated with an official organization (that is, not Hotmail or Gmail or something) that is not DeMaro's address. Also, the poster in question has a long track record of posting here, and of posting opinions that don't really sound like DeMaro's.
I just spoke to DeMaro for 20 minutes on the phone. He seems genuinely bewildered by all this, and he repeatedly offered to provide proof that he is not this commenter. I told him I didn't think that was necessary. As someone who still follows the Pirates and has a following on Twitter and Facebook, he was concerned about Dejan damaging his reputation.
Let's be clear about something else, too: It is not cool to out someone who's posting here, even if they might be annoying to you. You can't do that. And I take partial blame here -- I saw the comments last night and let them linger on the site for too long. I did this because of some conversations Dejan and I have had off the record, and because, given the uneasy relationship Dejan and I have had at times, I did not want to seem uncharitable to him while he was posting on my site, and I did not want to appear to censor him. Not deleting the comments right away was an error of judgment on my part, and I apologize to Rocco for that. Rocco is not the poster in question, and it wouldn't be right for Dejan to out him even if he were.