Questions Without Answers
So, Roger Clemens is a Yankee.
Again.
That this is simultaneously someone's fault and no one's fault is, as Terry Pratchett might say, merely an after-effect of "quantum."
There is much fault to be laid here. Amazingly enough, there is also no fault to be laid here. Fortunately, I've abused enough mind-altering substances that little things like reality and logic don't really matter right now.
All that matters is what is actually happening in spite of all apparent logic and reason, much the same way that bumblebees continue flying their daily rounds in spite of all that Sir Isaac Newton has taught us about why things that should fall do fall.
Such is the case with one Roger Clemens.
Never mind the fact that he has been and, until MUCH further notice, continues to be a first ballot Hall of Fame pitcher, a man with 348 career victories and 4600 strikeouts and, lest we forget, seven Cy Young Awards.
What matters is this: he will be 45 when he throws his next pitch in Yankee pinstripes.
That's 45 laps on what Shakespeare called "this mortal coil."
Baseball history is replete with pitchers who pitched well into their forties.
However, baseball history is NOT replete with pitchers who pitched well while pitching well into their forties.
This brings us to the curious case of Mr. Clemens. Mr. Clemens managed to win his seventh (!!) Cy Young award at the age of 42, which is only 18 (!!) years after he won his first. It's worth noting that he very nearly won his eighth last season, and might well have done so if his team had remembered to bring their bats to the games in which he started.
We are faced with a dilemma. On one hand, no one can beat the clock. On the other, we are not privy to Roger Clemens' clock.
You say "steroids," I say "Nolan Ryan."
I dare anyone to accuse the Von Ryan Express of taking anything more than vitamins, steak, the occasional beer, and a workout plan designed by Satan His Own Self...which, coincidentally enough, is all that Roger Clemens has been accused of. See, if you bother to look at ALL of baseball history, you'll find lots of pitchers who pitched well into their forties. Most of them pitched before the Forties, as irony would have it. And most of them were power pitchers.
Seems nature loves the simplicity of a fastball.
Which brings us back to Roger Clemens. Say what you will, but he really did pitch well for a Houston club that, according to Roger's friends in Katy, Texas, "couldn't hit the broad side of a red barn at high noon with a tailing wind." Heck, if half of the Astros could've hit Clemens' weight last season, he'd have Cy Young Number 8.
(This just in: having run out of sons to give it to, Clemens might have to consider a sperm bank...egad.)
And why am I talking so much about Roger Clemens? I have six words for you:
Carl Pavano. Yankees Opening Day Starter.
With the exception of some unrepeatable Italian and Puerto Rican that I last picked up in the Apple, there may be no fouler words in the greater NYC area than Carl Pavano.
This is why an elderly Clemens was able to hold George Steinbrenner at basically gunpoint. This is why Brian Cashman has hitched what's left of his reputation to a fading Texas star. The Red Sox outbid them for the last three free agent pitchers worth getting. The Astros gave up personal appearance clauses that Barry Bonds is about to fire his agent over (and which the Yankees still had to match). But the Yankees have the one thing that Clemens still wants: that World Series cachet.
See, the Rocket won his only World Series in pinstripes. When one considers what his career has been before and after that, it's not difficult to imagine him returning to the only team that won the whole thing with him pitching.
And the $28 million pro-rated? Well, there's two kinds of pitchers who can get that kind of money to show up in June.
There's Roger Clemens.
And there's everyone else who ain't Roger Clemens.
Now, all he has to to do is: Save Joe Torre's Job, Single-handedly Resuscitate The Yankee Pitching Staff, Win Every Game Between Here And The Trophy Ceremony, Stop Every Yankee Losing Streak, End Poverty, Cure Cancer, Solve Cold Fusion And Assasinate Hillary Clinton.
(Okay, that last one was kinda mine...kinda...)
It sez so right here that no one will ask The Rocket any steroid/HGH questions at all as he wins 14 games for the Bronx Bombers.
...at least, until that redacted document from the Kurt Radomski sting gets outed...
Again.
That this is simultaneously someone's fault and no one's fault is, as Terry Pratchett might say, merely an after-effect of "quantum."
There is much fault to be laid here. Amazingly enough, there is also no fault to be laid here. Fortunately, I've abused enough mind-altering substances that little things like reality and logic don't really matter right now.
All that matters is what is actually happening in spite of all apparent logic and reason, much the same way that bumblebees continue flying their daily rounds in spite of all that Sir Isaac Newton has taught us about why things that should fall do fall.
Such is the case with one Roger Clemens.
Never mind the fact that he has been and, until MUCH further notice, continues to be a first ballot Hall of Fame pitcher, a man with 348 career victories and 4600 strikeouts and, lest we forget, seven Cy Young Awards.
What matters is this: he will be 45 when he throws his next pitch in Yankee pinstripes.
That's 45 laps on what Shakespeare called "this mortal coil."
Baseball history is replete with pitchers who pitched well into their forties.
However, baseball history is NOT replete with pitchers who pitched well while pitching well into their forties.
This brings us to the curious case of Mr. Clemens. Mr. Clemens managed to win his seventh (!!) Cy Young award at the age of 42, which is only 18 (!!) years after he won his first. It's worth noting that he very nearly won his eighth last season, and might well have done so if his team had remembered to bring their bats to the games in which he started.
We are faced with a dilemma. On one hand, no one can beat the clock. On the other, we are not privy to Roger Clemens' clock.
You say "steroids," I say "Nolan Ryan."
I dare anyone to accuse the Von Ryan Express of taking anything more than vitamins, steak, the occasional beer, and a workout plan designed by Satan His Own Self...which, coincidentally enough, is all that Roger Clemens has been accused of. See, if you bother to look at ALL of baseball history, you'll find lots of pitchers who pitched well into their forties. Most of them pitched before the Forties, as irony would have it. And most of them were power pitchers.
Seems nature loves the simplicity of a fastball.
Which brings us back to Roger Clemens. Say what you will, but he really did pitch well for a Houston club that, according to Roger's friends in Katy, Texas, "couldn't hit the broad side of a red barn at high noon with a tailing wind." Heck, if half of the Astros could've hit Clemens' weight last season, he'd have Cy Young Number 8.
(This just in: having run out of sons to give it to, Clemens might have to consider a sperm bank...egad.)
And why am I talking so much about Roger Clemens? I have six words for you:
Carl Pavano. Yankees Opening Day Starter.
With the exception of some unrepeatable Italian and Puerto Rican that I last picked up in the Apple, there may be no fouler words in the greater NYC area than Carl Pavano.
This is why an elderly Clemens was able to hold George Steinbrenner at basically gunpoint. This is why Brian Cashman has hitched what's left of his reputation to a fading Texas star. The Red Sox outbid them for the last three free agent pitchers worth getting. The Astros gave up personal appearance clauses that Barry Bonds is about to fire his agent over (and which the Yankees still had to match). But the Yankees have the one thing that Clemens still wants: that World Series cachet.
See, the Rocket won his only World Series in pinstripes. When one considers what his career has been before and after that, it's not difficult to imagine him returning to the only team that won the whole thing with him pitching.
And the $28 million pro-rated? Well, there's two kinds of pitchers who can get that kind of money to show up in June.
There's Roger Clemens.
And there's everyone else who ain't Roger Clemens.
Now, all he has to to do is: Save Joe Torre's Job, Single-handedly Resuscitate The Yankee Pitching Staff, Win Every Game Between Here And The Trophy Ceremony, Stop Every Yankee Losing Streak, End Poverty, Cure Cancer, Solve Cold Fusion And Assasinate Hillary Clinton.
(Okay, that last one was kinda mine...kinda...)
It sez so right here that no one will ask The Rocket any steroid/HGH questions at all as he wins 14 games for the Bronx Bombers.
...at least, until that redacted document from the Kurt Radomski sting gets outed...
posted by van walker | 12:19 PM
1 Comments:
Nobody else seems to find this telling, but have you noticed that Clemens signed under almost the exact same terms that nobody cared about in Houston (give or take a few courses of $22), but now that he's in New York everyone wants a piece of him?
Furthermore, why did everyone make such a big deal of the David Wells comments? Had he been quiet for long enough that everyone forgot he was a jackass?
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