Roger Clemens – The Traitor

Roger Clemens – The Traitor

Roger Clemens – The Traitor

Ask a Boston Red Sox fan about Roger Clemens.

He was the greatest and the worst. The hero and the goat. The bear and the bull. The Alpha and the Omega. The storm and the calm. He was all of the contradictions, rolled into one healthy-as-a-horse-but-is-he-really-because-wasn’t-he-doping-that-whole-time-anyway package.

Ahem.

Strong feelings tend to come out when talking about Roger Clemens with a Red Sox fan. I know a couple who burned their baseball cards. I know another who still goes to sleep in a Roger Clemens jersey (not, one presumes, game worn).

It’s easy to forget that Clemens pitched in Boston for 13 years—two years longer than the 11 years he pitched, well, everywhere else combined. And everything about the man was bigger than life.

Clemens wore 21 with the Sox, and 21 with the Jays.

As a New York Yankees player, as if to highlight the bizarro thing that was happening, he wore 12—a literal reversal—and later 22, in what would be read as act of numerological one-upmanship. But, before all of that, he was simply Rocket.

There have been others who crossed over, of course. He was not the first or the last. Wade Boggs, halfway washed up, eased into the retirement years with the Yankees. Same for Johnny Damon. Jacoby Ellsbury made the switch while still in his prime.

But none was bigger than Rocket, nor more talented.

Although he needs no introduction, having pitched for most of the American League East at one time or another, perhaps a brief review of those early years of Rocketmania might be illuminating.

Clemens was drafted out of the University of Texas with the 19th overall pick by the Boston Red Sox in 1983. Although he was not born in Texas, Clemens oozed Lone Star swagger from the moment he broke into the big leagues barely a year later.

His first start against the Cleveland Indians, however, was unremarkable. He went 5.2 innings, struck out 4, and allowed 4 runs and 15 (!) baserunners, via 11 hits, 3 walks, and a hit batsman. It’s a small miracle that he didn’t get roughed up worse than he did. This might be one of the few times Clemens was ‘unremarkable’. He finished that, his rookie season, with a 9-4 record and 126 strikeouts in what amounted to a half-season of work.

And then, in 1986, he set the world on fire, posting a video game-like line that nearly precedes video games: 24-4 / 2.97 ERA / 238. The first two numbers would lead the league. His FIP (Fielding-Independent Pitching) of 2.81 also lead the league, beginning a streak of seven years in which he would lead the league in this now chic stat six times.

He proceeded to dominate everything that moved. Over his 13 seasons in Boston, he produced 81.3 WAR according to baseball-reference.com. That’s essentially a Hall-of-Fame career, in half of a career.

Unfortunately, he hid a mid-career skid that looked worse based on the preferred metrics of the era (ERA and wins, primarily). His ERA spiked as high as 4.46 one year, although his FIP was still considerably lower at 3.69.

Words were exchanged. Feelings were hurt.

And Clemens left town when his contract was up, after four years that were not quite up to snuff. A brief detour to pick up a couple of Cy Young awards in Toronto eventually led him to New York.

Nothing else matters. For these pre-2004 Red Sox, the sight of Clemens—the Rocket!—in pinstripes was misery. Of course, even this might’ve been forgiven. Any dreams of late career reconciliation with Boston and her fans were quickly squashed, though, by memories of Clemens wearing a Yankees cap during a “Best Players of the 20th Century” ceremony.

He wasn’t only the prodigal son who never came home: he was the prodigal son who set the house on fire.

So—how does a Boston fan justify sleeping in a Clemens jersey? He does it by divorcing the memories of Clemen’s early time in Boston from the memories of his later years in Toronto, New York, and Houston. If your childhood best friend grows up to be a mercenary, you don’t stop remembering them fondly. You can hate them for what they became, without hating what they were.

You can love him for his 3 Cy Youngs, his 81 WAR, his 20 strikeouts in a game, and everything else he did in Boston and still hate him for that damn Yankees cap.