In 2003, when Roger Clemens was riding high as a power pitcher throwing hard well beyond his years (somehow), he let it be known when the Hall of Fame came calling for his inevitable membership, he’d insist on going in as a Yankee. If Cooperstown dared portray him as a Red Sock, well, he just wouldn’t show up. He’d have his own party in Texas, screw you Abner Doubleday.
Something happened on the way to guaranteed immortality and now, nine years later, Clemens is trying to pitch in the majors again. He’s been working out his kinks, so to speak, in the Atlantic League, and the current Sugar Land Skeeter may be a Houston Astro by the time this season ends. Nobody’s watching the Astros in their final N.L. weeks (literally), so their new owner figures, what the hell, let’s throw the ol’ Rocket out there and see if anybody will bust down the doors to have a gander at this fifty-year-old freak of nature/chemistry.
But not so fast there, says the fastballer of yore. You can’t start me against just any team, for I am Roger Clemens, delusional sonofabitch who hasn’t thrown a Major League inning in five years, and you must pitch me against a contender, or I won’t play, just as I wasn’t going to come to my own Hall of Fame ceremony in 2009, which it turned out wasn’t the year of my induction because I kept retiring and unretiring and so forth until the Mitchell Report came out.
This is one of the most distasteful men to ever excel in baseball. Still.
Don’t ever give this man a painting of Shea Stadium. Not even a crappy one.
Worst. Human. Being. Ever.
I say let him pitch against a contender, and let said contenders light him up like a pinball machine. It would do my heart good to watch him ride off into the sunset with one of these 2/3 of an inning, 7 earned runs pitching lines.
Hi Greg,
This is just distasteful on the part of the Houston organization. If ever there was a money making gimmick that crossed the boundary of good taste, this is it.
Is Houston THAT hard up for attendance money? Let this cretin ride off into the sunset with Lance Armstrong and all the other discredited cheaters and general scumbags.
First off, he’s an asshole. Second off, we know the Astros will only bring him back to pitch at home. Third, the Astros home schedule after tonight are ALL contenders. Fourth, he’s still an asshole. And didn’t he also say somewhere that he would only pitch in the majors if his son was the catcher?
Fifth, he’s still an asshole.
If he makes the HOF I’m going to his induction ceremony and I am bringing a broken baseball bat with me that I will “toss aside” at an opportune moment.
Y’know, if that asshat actually made the Hall of Fame in the same season as Piazza, it certainly would have made for an interesting induction ceremony. I’d like to think that Met fans would chant and boo him right off the stage. At which point the dumber and/or drunker Yankee fans in attendance would take offense, and we’d end up with a full-on riot in Cooperstown.
Whether or not Clemens pitches this year, I don’t think we have to worry about that particular scenario. Which is great – I hope it eats him alive when Piazza goes in and he doesn’t. Maybe he’ll go violate another teenager to help him get over it.
To this day I still cannot believe he was simply allowed to deliberately throw a broken bat directly at Mike Piazza with no repercussions whatsoever. A shameful moment that should be (but probably won’t be) considered by HOF voters before casting any “yes” votes.
To show what a unlikeable prick this guy is, my brother-in law……a diehard Dodgers fan who dislikes the Mets, wishes that Mike Piazza had taken the broken bat in Game 2 and stuck the shredded end right into that fat cocks’ eye. Easily my most hated baseball player ever. Fuck him!
yes, wish piazza had taken roger out that evening…or better yet that the entire team had come out to do it for their star.
wish even moreso that the mets had someone on the mound the day roger came to bat at shea who could have plunked the bastard.
gets back to the team’s seemingly congenital lack of bad assed-ness.
yes, let roger pitch, and let him get shelled, and hope for a too-fast-to-react liner back up the middle that does what the mets collectively failed to do so many years ago.