In case you haven't noticed, the truth has come out. Roger Clemens used steroids. The image of the pitcher who arguably is the greatest to ever play the game of baseball has forever been tarnished. The man who won seven Cy Young awards, and twice struck out 20 batters in a game, the man who has over 300 wins and over 4,500 strikeouts took steroids. He denies this of course, unlike many of his other counterparts who were named in the Mitchel Report. Brian Roberts who was only alluded to, admitted to his steroid use. How does this make Roger Clemens look, the man who was named second most, for his connections to performance enhancing drugs, in the Mitchell Report to Barry Bonds look? Guilty. One of the other players named in the report was Roger's buddy Andy Petite who was named by the trainer he shared with Roger Clemens. Petite admitted his use and although he claimed it was only briefly in hopes of recovery from elbow problems more quickly, it was more than Roger Clemens did.
Why would he have done this? After his career with the Boston Red Sox his numbers would have given him an arguement for entry into the hall of fame. He had 192 wins, 2590 strike outs and an ERA of 3.05. When he left the Red Sox it looked as if his career was over and he was winding down. He had a sub 500 record in his walk year. The next year he won 21 games with the Blue Jays. That is allegedly a year that he took steroids. Is there a correlation there, or is it just extremely convenient?
All of this leads to one thing. Roger Clemens is a greedy man. Before this report emerged many people had problems with him because of his personaility but were willing to forgive him for his amazing performance. He was given the richest single year contract for a pitcher ever. He was making over 20 million a season for the past few years. And he was doing this all while taking time off. He wanted the money. He didn't want to play for the love of the game. If it was the game, why not start at the beginning of the season? Why pretend to retire? Maybe a team would offer more money to lure him out of retirement. That makes sense.
For Boston Red Sox fans, there is now no reason to like Roger Clemens. Granted while he was a Red Sox he did a lot for the team and he did not cheat then, at least as far as we know, he went on to play for the Yankees and the motivation for his career was only money. The past two years, Red Sox fans filled the airwaves phoning in their thoughts to WEEI in hopes of having Roger Clemens come back to Boston to end his storied career. How great would it have been if he came full circle? It would have atoned for him playing for the Yankees all those years. Granted he was traded their, but he became a Yankee. Now, with him leaving baseball as a Yankee, and as a cheater, what is there left to like?
I wish this weren't the case and I hope there is some way to prove his innocence, but it doesn't look like its going to happen.
A positive out of all this comes for Curt Schilling, many writers nationwide for being a loud mouth, but given what he has done for the Red Sox he should get a break from national media. He has proven he has a heart and cares for the game and his team, with his real bloody sock, and he signed a contract for less money than he was paid last year for the coming season. He might be loud at times, but he isn't a cheater. Roger Clemens has stained his career.
