WILL HE OR WON’T HE???

Roger Clemens
Photo courtesy of Jim Pierce Baseball America

Last year Roger Clemens timed his return to coincide with his wants. He wanted to be strong down the stretch, he wanted to rehab at two minor league teams he has an interest in, and he wanted to play ball with his son Koby. The Rocket signed a 22 million dollar deal with the Stros and the reported attendance at two of his rehab starts ended with the number 22. Quirky, maybe, but he has the rite to certain oddities. Clemens has indeed earned his place in baseball history, as one of the greatest pitchers in the history of baseball. And at the ripe old age of 43 he still has something left in the tank as evidenced by a 2.30 ERA, with a 7-6 record, 102 strikeouts in 113 1/3 innings pitched. His lifetime mark is 348-178 to go along with 4,604 career strikeouts. So what if he named his sons with each boy’s name starting with the letter K (Koby, Kory, Kacy, & Kody). Roger is a rawboned hard thrower out of the mold of Nolan Ryan, who can still, “blow that speedball by you. Make you look like a fool”, to paraphrase Bruce Springsteen. So we’ll have to see if the Rocket will be blasting off again in 2007 or whether he’s gonna come in for a landing at his home base.