Two years later is when he fully arrived as one of the best players in baseball. In April of , he set an MLB record with 20 strikeouts in a game.
Here's a small sample of an interview we did recently with Roger Clemens, the full conversation will air tonight at on Beyond the Sport. It would take a while for Clemens to get that first title. He would win two more Cy Young awards pitching for the Red Sox before leaving for Toronto after the season. He was with the Blue Jays only two years, but won the Cy Young award both of those years. Clemens pitched for the Yankees through the season, when he thought he was ready to retire.
While he was not yet a polished pitcher, he still demonstrated great potential. Some bend in legs and drive to plate would help velocity, life, and location. Owing to rare encouragement from the usually gruff Gustafson, Clemens persevered — he went with a 3. As far as I was concerned, Boston was a foreign country. Clemens claimed — as most pitchers do — that he had only wanted to brush Davis back and that the pitch had gotten away from him; however, he also claimed that he was prepared to fight, something for which Davis was in no condition as he collapsed and was taken to a hospital.
The split opinion among baseball observers as to whether Clemens merely pitched inside or was a headhunter mirrors the split in opinion about his character in general. Few players thought poorly of Don Drysdale or Nolan Ryan for pitching close inside, but these two pitchers were held in high regard while Clemens was often considered arrogant.
Clemens fanned the flames of this negative reputation by both his actions and his words, never more infamously so than after winning the American League MVP Award. Clemens charged the umpire but stopped short of any physical contact.
Charging umpires became another Clemens trait as his career progressed, but calming down did not. New Britain dispatched the Phillies and faced the Lynn Sailors for the championship, which they won when Clemens pitched a strikeout shutout in Game Four.
His personal life became equally so when he began to date Debra Lynn Godfrey, whom he had known in passing at Spring Woods High School, in the offseason. Godfrey was a fellow fitness fanatic who twice auditioned for the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders squad, and the two of them worked out together regularly.
They became engaged in May and were married in November of that year. Before his engagement to Godfrey, Clemens made one final stop on his way to Boston. He took part in spring training with the parent club in the familiar surroundings of Winter Haven, Florida, but ended up being assigned to Pawtucket of the Triple-A International League to begin the season after posting a 6. Clemens did not allow his disappointment to keep him from excelling at yet another level as he posted a 1. On Tuesday, May 15, , Clemens made his major-league debut against the Indians before a mere 4, fans at chilly Cleveland Stadium and learned that minor-league success does not always carry over instantly to the majors.
Clemens was up and down from start to start and later conceded that some people were beginning to question whether he might fall into the same category as David Clyde , the s poster boy for young pitchers who had been rushed to the major leagues too quickly. That fear was put to rest by a strikeout performance against the Kansas City Royals on August 21, but soon a new specter — that of injury — arrived to haunt the Red Sox and their fans.
In his final start of the season, on August 31 against the Indians, Clemens registered seven of 11 outs by strikeout and then exited the game with a strained tendon in his right forearm. Though the injury was minor, Clemens was shut down for the year and finished a solid but unspectacular rookie campaign at with a 4. Clemens spent the offseason learning new exercises to strengthen his shoulder and waited for the season to come around. The Red Sox started out slowly in , but Clemens overcame his spring-training fears about his rehabilitated shoulder and charged out to a record with a 1.
His fourth start provided the harbinger of things to come as April 29, , became the night on which Roger Clemens vaulted himself to stardom. Facing a free-swinging Seattle Mariners team that had struck out times in 19 games, he turned in a record-setting performance by striking out 20 batters in a nine-inning, complete-game effort at Fenway Park.
Clemens began the game in form by brushing back his former college teammate and role model Spike Owen with his second and third pitches of the night. Afterward, he denied throwing at Owen, but a conflicting account exists in which former Longhorns teammate Mike Capel dared him to plunk Owen on the day before the game. Fortunately for Clemens and the Red Sox, Dwight Evans hit a three-run homer in the bottom of the inning for the final margin of victory. From that point on, Clemens struck out four more batters to reach the record-breaking total of After an strikeout victory at Baltimore on June 27, Clemens was only the fifth pitcher in major-league history to start a season The Red Sox, meanwhile, were in first place in the AL East with a record and a seven-game lead at the break.
There was, however, a downside that accompanied all of this success, and it involved his relationship with the media and its burgeoning demands on his time. The media crush of an All-Star Game that matched Clemens and fellow fireballer Dwight Gooden as the starters did not deter him from turning the event into yet another showcase for his talents.
His newfound stardom also birthed a new arrogance that surfaced in the second half of the season. In his July 30 start against the Chicago White Sox at Comiskey Park , Clemens had a new manner of meltdown after first-base umpire Greg Kosc made a disputed call that went against him. With two outs in the fifth inning, Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner had flipped a Harold Baines grounder to Clemens, who thought he had beaten the runner to the bag.
With Clemens batting against the Mets for the first time, the game represented the Mets' first risk-free chance to "get even" with Clemens for his nearly two-year-old beanball. The speculation was that Clemens was certain to be plunked; the reality was more ambivalent. Mets starter Shawn Estes threw a pitch behind Clemens' back, failing to satisfy the crowd and drawing an umpire's warning thus preventing Estes from making another HBP attempt. However, the Mets scored four runs off Clemens, including home runs by the two Met principals Estes and Piazza, and handed Clemens the loss.
Early in , Clemens announced his retirement, effective at the end of that season. On June 13 , , pitching against the St. Louis Cardinals in Yankee Stadium , Clemens recorded his th career win and 4,th career strikeout, the only player in history to record both milestones in the same game. The th win came on his fourth try; the Yankee bullpen had blown his chance of a win in his previous two attempts.
He became the 21st pitcher ever to record wins and the third ever to record 4, strikeouts, joining Nolan Ryan 5, and Steve Carlton 4, His career record upon reaching the milestones was ; his record at the end of the season was with 4, strikeouts. The end of Clemens' season became a series of public farewells in which the great righthander was met with appreciative cheering.
His last games in each AL park were given extra attention, particularly his final regular season appearance in Fenway Park a spectacle which was repeated when the Yankees ended up playing the Red Sox in that year's ALCS and Clemens got a second "final start" in his original stadium. Though wearing the uniform of the hated arch rival, the Fenway Faithful gave him a standing ovation as he left the field. Clemens was permitted to manage the Yankees' last game of the regular season.
Clemens made one start in the World Series against the Florida Marlins ; when he left trailing after seven innings, even the Marlins left their dugout to give him a standing ovation. He chose to un-retire, signing a one-year deal with his adopted hometown Houston Astros on January 12 , , joining close friend and former Yankees teammate Andy Pettitte. On May 5 , Clemens recorded his 4,th career strikeout to place him second on the all-time list behind Nolan Ryan.
He finished the season with 4, strikeouts and an record, giving him a career record of After the season, he won his seventh Cy Young Award , extending his record number of awards. He became the oldest player ever to win this award, at age In Houston, Clemens wore 22, his number with the Yankees, partially because Pettitte chose 21, in Clemens' honor. Clemens again decided to put off retirement before the season after the Houston Astros offered salary arbitration. The deal gave Clemens the highest yearly salary earned by a pitcher in MLB history.
It also made him the sixth highest paid player in baseball that year. Clemens' season ended as one of the finest he had ever posted. His 1. He finished with a record despite ranking near 30th in run support, with the Astros scoring an average of only about 3. The Astros were shut out nine times in Clemens' 32 starts, and failed to score in a tenth until after Clemens was out of the game.
The Astros lost five Clemens starts by scores of , including three consecutively in April. Clemens leaving the mound after an emotional performance on September 15, Clemens' mother Bess had died earlier the same day.
He has more career wins than any other right-handed pitcher of the live-ball era. On April 8 , , Clemens won his first start of the season against the Cincinnati Reds , which tied him with Steve Carlton for second in wins for live-ball pitchers, and first among pitchers whose career began after World War II. However, it took him a month to surpass Carlton, as he was victimized by horrendous run support in a string of five starts that produced one loss and four no-decisions.
On May 9 , he finally got his second win of the season against the Florida Marlins , giving him for his career. Only left-hander Warren Spahn is ahead of Clemens in wins among live-ball pitchers. Passing Carlton also gave Clemens more wins than any pitcher alive. The only current pitcher with a reasonable chance of passing Clemens is Maddux, who now has wins to Clemens' and is nearly four years younger. On the morning of September the 15th Clemens' mother Bess died, Clemens took the mound later that night and pitched well to earn a win in front an energetic Houston crowd.
In his final start of the season, Clemens got his 4,th strikeout. On October 9 , , Clemens made his first relief appearance since , entering as a pinch hitter in the 15th, then pitching three innings to help the Astros defeat the Atlanta Braves in the longest postseason game in MLB history. The game ran 18 innings, and Clemens was awarded the win. The Astros went on to lose all four games of the franchise's first World Series. A hamstring pull had hampered Clemens' performance since at least September.
The Astros declined arbitration to Clemens on December 7 , , which prevented them from re-signing him before May 1 , On May 31 , , following another extended period of speculation, it was announced that Roger Clemens was coming out of retirement for the third time to pitch for the Astros for the remainder of the season. Clemens made his return on June 22 , against the Minnesota Twins , losing to their rookie phenom, Francisco Liriano , For the second year in a row, his win total did not match his performance, as he finished the season with a record, a 2.
We have dramatically expanded our coverage of the Negro Leagues and historical Black major league players. Read our Announcement. WAR ERA 3. Games Played This includes all times that the player appeared on the lineup card. Pitchers in non-DH games that appeared on the lineup card but didn't bat will still have a game in this column. IP WHIP 1. Pitching Career Batting Career Pitching Postseason Batting Postseason Fielding Postseason. Standard Pitching Show Minors.
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