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Roger Clemens
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dumbest thing ive read in a while
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Who gets run in the second inning of a playoff game arguing balls and strikes?
Who comes out of a WS-clinching game with a "blister"?
Who got lit the [censored] up in game 7 of the 03 ALCS?
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but he lacked Orr's panache and Bird's sense of The Moment. After awhile, we stopped measuring him against them. We adored him, we supported him ... but we worried about him. You never worried about Bird and Orr.
For instance, during Game 6 of the '86 World Series, Clemens could have closed out the Mets and emerged as a genuine hero (you forget this now, but everything was sitting right there at his fingertips -- "legend" status, a statue, the whole shebang). He pitched valiantly, holding a 3-2 lead through the seventh before exiting with a blister on the index finger of his throwing hand; even 15 years later, the principles involved (Clemens, former manager John McNamara and former pitching coach Bill Fischer) still argue whether or not Clemens asked out of the game.
McNamara vehemently claims that Clemens told him, "That's all I can pitch"; Clemens steadfastly maintains that he was yanked after the seventh; and prosecutor Jim Garrison claims that there may have been a second pitching coach ordering Clemens to leave the game. Nobody knows the truth, but we know one thing: Under similar circumstances, Larry Bird would have remained in the game unless he was forcibly removed and hogtied to the Celtics bench.
Clemens started eight playoff games in a five-year span from 1986-90, with the Sox winning just one of those starts (Game 7 of the 1986 ALCS against a shell-shocked Angels squad). To be fair, Boston's bullpen blew two other potential wins, but only one statistic keeps jumping out: 2-6. Not a good sign.
We watched Hershiser ('88), Rijo ('90) and Morris ('91) shine in postseasons over that same stretch, quietly waiting for Clemens to embark on a similar "Get on my back, boys" run. Never happened. Eventually we wondered if Clemens only peaked in meaningless games, like the time he tossed a complete game shutout during the final game of the '87 season (clinching his bid for a second Cy Young) after the Sox had been eliminated from the playoff picture for months.
And then there was Oakland ace/nemesis Dave Stewart, who delighted in beating Clemens in their head-to-head matchups (my math might be a little off here, but if I remember correctly, Stewart's lifetime record against Clemens was 982-0 -- even the Globetrotters-Generals feud wasn't this one-sided). Things finally boiled over in Game 4 of the 1990 American League playoffs between Stewart and Clemens, as the Rocket flipped out while arguing balls and strikes with home plate umpire Terry Cooney and got himself tossed in the second inning, even punctuating his exit by throwing a memorable, Whitney Houston-esque tantrum on the field and bumping Cooney more than once. Again, Larry wouldn't have done something like that.
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