The Clemens clan won't have any trouble watching him today when their
boy goes for victory No. 300 against the Red Sox in Yankee Stadium.
Roger's been on the phone since late Wednesday (the night he beat the Sox
in Fenway for No. 299) making arrangements for family and friends.
Expected to be at the Stadium today are sister Janet, wife Debbie, the K
boys (Koby, Kory, Kacy, and Kody), former teammates Rich Gedman and Bruce
Hurst, and dozens of others who helped Clemens on his trek toward the Hall
of Fame. If her health permits, Ma Clemens also will be at the game.
Welcome to Roger-palooza, 2003. He's being mentioned as quite possibly
the greatest pitcher of all-time and today he could become the 21st major
leaguer to win 300.
This was always the plan. There was nothing accidental about any of it.
His mother's first Houston residence was dictated by which region had the
strongest high school baseball program.
We think of him as a Texan, but Clemens was born in Dayton, Ohio, and
lived there until he was 14. He lived with his brother, Randy, and Randy's
wife, Kathy, when he first moved to Houston. Bess stayed behind with two
of Roger's sisters. She moved to Texas after Roger's sophomore year of
high school and by then, Randy and Roger had scouted the high school
system. The best ball was played at Spring Woods and that meant Bess would
take an apartment off Gessner Road which would put Roger in the Spring
Woods school district.
Clemens was the No. 3 starter on his first team at Spring Woods and
there were never fewer than five professional scouts at any game. He was
in place to succeed. His work ethic and God-given gifts took care of the
rest.
It's fitting he'll be the 21st member of the 300 club (first since
Nolan Ryan joined in 1990, which makes him the first in the era of the
five-man rotation). Twenty-one has always been his number, even though he
switched to 22 in Yankee pinstripes because 21 was taken. He won No. 299
at Fenway on the 21st of May. The Red Sox someday may retire Clemens's No.
21 (no one has worn it since he left after the 1996 season), but that's
another story for another day.
Clemens won his first big league game May 20, 1984, when Ralph Houk was
managing a boring Boston ballclub. This was just one year after Yaz hung
it up. By the time Clemens was finished in Boston, the Sox had a baby
shortstop named Garciaparra with a total of 24 games under his belt.
Garciaparra today will try to extend his hitting streak to 26 games.
Clemens's Boston years easily would furnish enough material for another
Ken Burns series, but it boils down to this: He won 192 games and three Cy
Young Awards for the Red Sox. Only Cy Young (also 192 wins for Boston,
which is somehow fitting and symmetrical, don't you think?) compares when
one talks about the best pitchers in Red Sox history.
Many Sox fans don't like him now and that's because he went 40-39 in
his last four years here, took big money in Toronto after saying he'd only
pitch in Houston, and ultimately went to work for the Yankees, where he
finally won championships. Sox fans respect the big lug, but it's too much
to ask the Nation to applaud a former Red Sox who has become a pillar for
the Yankees. We saw (and heard) that last week at Fenway.
But no illogical emotion can strip Clemens of his place in hardball
history. He has won a record six Cy Young Awards. He ranks third on the
all-time strikeout list. Since 1900, among righthanded pitchers with 250
career decisions, only Christy Mathewson has a higher winning percentage
(.665 to .662) than Clemens. And at 40, he enters today's game with a
record of 6-2 and an ERA of 2.92.
Baseball historian/stat guru Bill James, now part of the Red Sox
braintrust, has written that you can make an argument for Clemens as the
best pitcher in baseball history. Allen Barra in yesterday's New York
Times wrote, ''It is just now becoming apparent that there is a strong
case for calling Clemens the greatest starting pitcher in baseball
history.''
Hmmmm. Cy Young. Mathewson. Walter Johnson. Lefty Grove. Bob Feller.
Warren Spahn. Sandy Koufax. Bob Gibson. That's a lot of history.
The Rocket took a liner off his right hand near the end of his start in
Boston last week but said he'd be out there today unless there was a
broken bone. The Yankees have lost 11 of their last 14 overall, and 11 of
their last 12 at home. They also have dropped four of their last five
series and trail the Red Sox by 1 1/2 games in the American League East.
''I'm glad to have an opportunity to do it for the home fans,'' Clemens
said after he beat the Sox in Fenway last week. ''I've been getting calls
from all the guys I played with. I really don't know what to expect, but
it will be exciting. I want to be able to get it [300] and get it over
with so we can continue our season.''
The stage could not be any better, not for late May. Clemens gets to go
for No. 300 at Yankee Stadium, in the daytime, on national television, on
Memorial Day, as part of the best rivalry in sports, against the team that
brought him to the big leagues.
His whole life prepared him for this. And his family won't have to go
to any bowling alley to keep up with the action.
By Dan Shaughnessy The Boston Globe Staff
This story ran on page C1 of the Boston Globe on
5/26/2003.
Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.