Roger Clemens, The Hall Of Fame, And Some Other Things

The Hall of Fame class of 2013 will be announced today at 2 PM on MLB Network.  I’ll be making a special trip home to watch it, but in the meantime, I wanted to get my voice out there for your reading pleasure.  I’ve recently been reading a bit of firejoemorgan.com and don’t feel comfortable bashing someone (Howard Bryant) for leaving their ballot blank or someone (Jon Heyman) for trying to make a clean ballot. I admit that the whole voting process is best described as a conundrum. Instead, I’ll provide what my ballot would be if I had the vote after fjm-ing myself about Roger Clemens.  It’s not our usual style, and we’ll be sure to get back to the more family friendly OffTheBench in the coming days.  The italicized is a transcript from a buzzed (drunk) rant of mine that was fortunately (unfortunately?) caught on tape, with commentary spliced in from a slightly more logical place.

So Sean, Roger Clemens made a start this summer, I wanted to know what you thought about that.  

What do I think about Roger Clemens? I think he’s an asshole.  For a lot of reasons.

Ok, We already know where this is going, but I like how it starts.  Straight and to the point.  Good job Sean.  I do have to ask: Have you ever met the guy? Did he kill your favorite imaginary friend?

Number 1: He’s a jerk.  He’s not a nice person.  He’s never smiling.

Thwarted.  (In all seriousness though, that’s Clemens’ wife STANDING OVER HIM WITH A BAT and it’s the only picture of him with what could be described as a smile on his face in the first 8 pages of Google Image results–unless you think this counts). (Editor’s note: I can’t decide if his wife is hot or repulsive. Hmm…- Max)

That’s a big deal to me.  Baseball is fun.  You’re getting paid a lot of money to play baseball.  You should be having fun.  

By this line of thinking, Clemens clearly only has fun when his wife is STANDING OVER HIM WITH A BAT. He never had fun while winning those two World Series, nor did he enjoy 50,000 fans at Yankee Stadium screaming for him.  He must have hated that.  Wanted to stop every time he took the field.

But nope, that’s not true. Clemens pitched until he was 44 and came back this year at age 50 to pitch in independent ball.  He must have not enjoyed baseball so much that he wanted to not enjoy it some more.  UNLESS, Clemens is really a masochist.  I may be onto something here….

Number 2: He used steroids. I don’t care that somebody said he didn’t use steroids and that you can’t prove he didn’t use steroids.

Do steroid needles hurt when you inject them? If so, Clemens definitely used steroids.

Andy Pettitte, who’s his best friend in baseball said that he did.  That’s a big deal. You don’t just have a boy and work out with him and your boy is like “Yo, this dude used steroids and he told me to use steroids and I did.  I’m sorry you can’t prove it.” And then you didn’t use them.  If your boy said you used ’em, you used ’em.  In my book thats good enough.  

…..It’s 6 months after this was first recorded and I’m still trying to figure out what the hell I just said.

Besides the point, clearly the guy used steroids because he won a Cy Young in like 1984.

Nope. Not sound logic.

He was completely dominant in 1984.

…. And therefore used steroids.

Then, in 2004, 20 years later, gets paid like $15 Million to play for half a year. I don’t know if you know the stats or not, but he was f***ing good for 20 straight years.

The stats: Cy Young in 1986.  (1984: no Cy Young. Oops)  2004: pitched 211 innings and was paid $5 Million.  2007: pitched 99 innings and was paid $17.2 Million.  I was close.  As for the 20 straight years of being good, that much is correct.  He pitched for 24 years and had a 3.12 career ERA.

That’s not how a career path works in the Majors.  Period. You’re not good until you’re 42. When you’re 42, you’re shit.

Or… more accurately, you’re a 42 year old dude. You probably have a wife and some kids and have some creaky achey bones.  You probably have mastered the barbeque and have at least one apron that says “Grill Master.”  You might even have a dog named Rocket.  You’re not shit.  That wasn’t nice and I take it back.

That’s how I feel.  

We know. You said it.

When you look at Schilling–fatass Curt Schilling–on Baseball Tonight, he says “I can’t believe Roger Clemens is throwing at 50.”  That’s Curt Schilling right now, at 48, being in awe that this dude is still in shape.

Why’d I have to bring Schilling into this? Oh, right, because he’s an ass too.  At least he’s out of shape now and I can take some solace in the fact that I’m (working on getting) in shape.

I can’t stand Roger Clemens. Seven time CyYoung winner…. asshole… Asshole Award they might as well call it. They might as well name it the Asshole Award.  

I can’t really make a joke about what Clemens did with all those Awards can I? Not with the whole masochist thing I brought up earlier.

Ninth all time in strikeouts?  I don’t give a flip.  Look at this dog (Points to dog).  This dog could strike out more cats than Roger Clemens.  

Actuall, third all time in strikeouts… but the bigger issue is that the dog I pointed at is named after Chipper Jones. If he had been named after Nolan Ryan or Randy Johnson I could have made a case.  As it stands, Chipper Jones’s current career strikeout total is 0. We’ll just leave (the dog) Chipper’s strikeout total against archenemy cats up for debate.

I just… I don’t care for the dude.  What else?  The Rocket.  That’s a stupid ass nickname.  He only played for the Astros for like two years out of his career.  He’s more famous as a Red Sox.

Yeah, where did he get the nickname “The Rocket?”  Wikipedia doesn’t know and therefore nobody knows.  I bet Clemens gave himself the nickname and then smiled at anybody that didn’t call him Rocket.  (Seriously click on that link earlier to realize how terrifying most Clemens smiles truly are.) It couldn’t have anything to do with the aforementioned masochistic ways.  It just couldn’t.

We might as well call him Dracula.  That’s a better nickname for him.  What else?  Yankees.  Stripes.  Tiger.  Call him leopard.

So I just played word association to come up with a new nickname for Roger Clemens and landed on leopard?  Wow.  Leopards are graceful; the smallest of the Faladae family (I have no idea why I knew that without looking it up).  Clemens is large and undeserving or the nickname Leopard.

LeopardSkin. That’s a better nickname than THE ROCKET.  What an asshole. LeopardSkin.  That’s what I’m gonna start calling him. 

Oh wow.  The word association continued and I wound up with LeopardSkin.  A few things

1. I’m a weird guy
2. LeopardSkin surely correlates with Clemens’ previously mentioned strange sexual tendencies
3. Did you know Leopards could climb trees?
4. Clemens shall henceforth be called LeopardSkin on this blog and I’m not sure why.  I am sure that I have editing power.

A few Hall of Fame notes.  I absolutely think there is something special about being elected on the first ballot.  I’m not sure where I stand on PED users.  Do we pretend that all of the numbers are real?  Do we pretend that all of the numbers are inflated?  Do we judge each player based on how he fared against his competition despite potential competitive advantage?  I’m not entirely sure, and realize that I’m making decisions on a case by case basis.

My actual, very serious ballot:

• Barry Bonds
• Craig Biggio
• Edgar Martinez
• Tim Raines
• Fred McGriff
• Mike Piazza

I can’t help but notice that my list has six hitters.  Thats a little disconcerting as Curt Schilling and Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa will all probably receive my vote next year.  Along with Mark McGwire.  I’m not sure why I’m not voting for McGwire yet, other than I’m just not ready to see him in the Hall of Fame.

-Sean Morash

Stat of the Day: The Nissan Leaf has a 24 kWh battery.