Roger Clemens and His Place in Baseball History

Roger Clemens may or may not pitch in 2007; trying to predict what he will do is difficult. What is not hard to do is figuring out what his place among the game's greats will be, as Roger Clemens has few peers in this regard. Roger Clemens is currently eighth on Major League Baseball's all-time wins list with his 348 victories, and his 4,604 strikeouts are bested only by Nolan Ryan's 5,714. Roger Clemens obviously is a first ballot Hall of Famer, but is this because of longevity or is Roger Clemens simply one of the pitchers of not only his generation, but ever to play the game?

Born in Dayton, Ohio in 1962, William Roger Clemens came to the Boston Red Sox after a terrific career as a pitcher at the University of Texas. Clemens was drafted in the first round of the 1983 with the 19th pick, and Roger was towing the rubber in Boston by the middle of May in 1984. Clemens posted a 9-4 record as a 21 year old rookie, and really began to flourish in his third season with the Red Sox. In 1986, Clemens became a full-fledged star, winning the American League's Cy Young Award and Most Valuable Player honors after going 24-4 with a 2.48 earned run average. Clemens is the only starting pitcher since Vida Blue in 1971 to be named a league's MVP and he came back after 1986 with six straight years of at least 17 victories, and his 1987 and 1991 campaigns also resulted in Cy Youngs.

From 1993 through the 1996 season, Roger Clemens was a mediocre 40-39 for the four campaigns, and he had a falling out with Boston management which precipitated his becoming a free agent. As a member of the Red Sox, Roger Clemens went 191-117, and twice he struck out twenty men in a nine inning game to set a major league record that is also now shared by Kerry Wood and Randy Johnson. Clemens was not offered a contract he felt was fair and he inked with the Blue Jays and made Boston's front office turn pale when he earned the Cy Young Award both of his years in a Toronto uniform. Clemens added insult to injury by winning the Triple Crown for hurlers both years, going 21-7 in 1997 with a 2.05 earned run average and 292 strikeouts, with an encore of 20-6, 2.65, and 271 strikeouts in 1998.