When i read the OP, i was going to predict that no Red Sox fan would want Clemens anyway.
I see that at least half a dozen such people have confirmed my suspicions.
I heartily second the vote for a cap with a $.
As a Yankee fan, I’m never mystified by any hostility shown by Red Sox fans towards anything. It’s just so amusing, their GM considered Roger washed up and refused to offer him a good contract, but Roger is the traitor. He has 2 great seasons with Toronto, and Red Sox fans consider it a personal insult, as if he intentionally got injured and had mediocre seasons late in his Boston career. The Yankees pursue him, looking for the ace they want in their rotation, trade for him, and it’s all Roger’s fault.
What was he thinking? That bastard! What he should have done is take a few million a year less from Boston than Toronto wanted to pay him. Or at least, he should have refused the trade from a decidedly average Blue Jays team, to the World Champion Yankees, who really wants to be on a winning team anyway?
If that was the way it happened, then I wouldn’t blame Clemens. But it wasn’t. The reason the Jays traded him was because Clemens demanded a trade to the Yankees, before they made the offer of Wells.
He signed the contract with one team, then demanded a trade to another after he got his money. That shows very little character.
He had every right to leave Boston for Toronto, and I don’t blame him for that. Boston lowballed him and tried to force him out. But when you do that, you shouldn’t start demanding a trade to a winning team. He knew the Jays would suck when he signed the contract, but it didn’t matter to him then. Clemens suddenly found the need to be on a winning team and demanded the trade.
Clemens was actually offered more money by New York than he was by Toronto. It’s easy to observe now that the Jays blew goats in '97, but players are generally not very good judges of a team’s future. I don’t think most major leaguers have perspective on a team’s true chances; I could find 200 references of players stating that the acquisition of Joe Somebody will turn their team from a 65-97 disaster into a contender, but objectively we know that’s impossible.
At the time Toronto was not far removed from glory and was still perceived as a good organization that had just had some bad luck, and they were spending money on free agents. Given that he could have made more money with the Yankees, it’s reasonable to believe Clemens equated the spending spree with impending success and didn’t actually sit down with a calculator to figure out that the '96 Jays had one of the worst offenses in the history of the American League. But his error soon became apparent, so he demanded the trade that he had been promised when he signed (there was a personal agreement between Clemens and the Jays that he could ask for a trade if they didn’t win.)
Toronto fans can’t complain, and generally don’t. Clemens and the Jays went into the deal with their eyes widfe open; he was very specific that he wanted the right to ask for a trade if Toronto did not win. Clemens pitched brilliantly here. His '97 season was one of the best seasons a pitcher has ever had and his '98 was a hell of a year, too. The Jays could have got equal value for him if they’d been run by a competent GM, and it’s not as if getting two years of David Wells was a complete washout; Wells pitched well, too. Toronto came away way up for having signed him.
For those of you who lack understanding, here is a fine summary of why Bostonians and Red Sox faithful everywhere will never forgive Roger Clemens
Skammer, there’s nothing in that summary that explains what Clemens did wrong.
Sure there is. He was on the Red Sox and then the organization lowballed him and he ended up on the Yankees. That’s it. That’s the entire thing. He’s on the Yankees now.
I’m pretty sure that’s in the column.
Red Sox fans are still pissed off about Babe Ruth. Anytime a player (in this case a Texan who probably couldn’t have cared less about the Red Sox jealousy before he arrived) migrates from the Sox to the Yanks, it’s a reason to condemn that player forever to the deepest pits of Hades where even Sisyphus will gain pleasure from watching their torture.
Yep.
And contrawise, it is a source of great and eternal pleasure to the Yankee fans to watch the Red Sox perform with style at the beginning of the season and then flame out come July. Curse of the Bambino still going strong.
You got it, E. The later the crash, the better. Nothing like the look of despair on a Sox fan’s face 
Almost as good as Jeter’s face at the end of last year’s ALDS.
Jayson Stark says it perfectly. Roger should have a B on his cap.
To all you embittered Boston fans: did you ALWAYS think Roger Clemens was an arrogant prick? Or only after he left Boston?
See, I have to ask, because I can’t recall hearing you boo him when he took the mound in a Red Sox uniform. I can’t recall hearing a single Red Sox fan calling him an arrogant prick back in 1986. So, are we supposed to believe he was an admirable, hard-nosed old-school pitcher then, but has turned into the epitome of evil since leaving Boston?
Get real! If Clemens is a prick now, he was a prick then. If you chose to ignore that fact and cheer for him anyway, that reflects badly on YOU, not on him.
He is an arrogant prick because he is making a demand from a body that owes him nothing. There is no obligation on the part of the Hall of Fame Committe to induct him, yet he is demanding that his plaque depict him wearing a Yankees cap, not a Blue Jays cap or a Red Sox cap.
I have already conceded that there is little doubt that he has all the necessary statistics to be enshrined. The fact remains that he is not now, nor will he be for at least five years from this date (should he retire right now), eligible for induction.
There is no valid reason for him to publicly demand anything from the Hall of Fame at this point in his career.
Are you shitting me? When he was with the Red Sox in his last contract, he was the epitome of the spoiled pussy baseball player.
Showing up to training camp late and way out of shape, and staying that way through the season.
The “I have to carry my own bags through the airport” whine.
Taking himself out of crucial games, either through ejection or whining.
Boasting a robust .500 record over his last 4 years in Boston (40-39), while averaging a less-than-workmanlike 180 innings per season.
A horrible big-game pitcher… 1-3 in 9 career post-season starts with the Red Sox, with an ERA around 4.
Completely OWNED by Dave Stewart of the A’s, (7-1 lifetime) to the point that he’d somehow manage to avoid pitching against him in his later years with the Sox. Precisely like he does nowadays to avoid pitching during interleague play when he might have to drag his sorry ass to the plate and take the medicine (read: headhunting) he’s been dishing out all these years.
Roger Clemens has never been loved, anywhere he’s played… He’s been tolerated, perhaps admired for his accomplishments, perhaps appreciated as being the ace of aces of the last quarter-century. I wouldn’t put him in the quite the same category as Ty Cobb as being a reprehensible human being, but he’s not as far off as one might think…
-Rav
As someone who only moved to the US a few years ago, and who is not yet steeped in baseball lore and history , can i just hijack this for a moment to ask a question?
What was the deal with Ty Cobb? What did he do that made him such an asshole? If someone can provide an informative link or something, i’d be most appreciative.
Here you go, mhendo, regarding Ty Cobb:
He talked the talk, and walked the walk, but was never liked by many, including his own teammates.
Ty Cobb was one of the most vile people to ever walk the face of the earth. He was a stone-cold racist and one of the dirtiest players ever. He would sharpen his spikes and use them to injure second basemen who tried to turn double plays on him. He went into the stands and beat a crippled man because he was heckling him. He was the most hated man who ever played the game - on the final game of the season the St. Louis Browns gave Cobb’s biggest competitor to the batting title easy pitches all game, purposely botched plays and made poor field alignments so that Cobb wouldn’t win the batting title. His own teammates hated his guts.
This is a nice summary of his career.
And ESPN.com ranked him as the dirtiest player to every play professional sports.
He was also one of the greatest hitters the game has ever seen.
Thanks for the links, Casey and Neurotik. Professional sport certainly produces some interesting characters, to say the least!
No, people stood and cheered when Clemens took the mound to pitch for the Blue Jays at Fenway during his second year with them - 1998 or so. I was there, so I did too. Red Sox fans aren’t all like-minded and aren’t known for their rationality in baseball matters anyway. But they still cheered Roger at Fenway, because Red Sox management has always had their heads up their asses and a legendary non-ability to retain good players or get them to actually work for the team, nothing new there…we’re assured that he’s washed up, he flies off to Toronto, immediately picks up another Cy Young. And we’re supposed to be mad at him? Feh.
But now he’s with the Yankees. That’s a whole different thing.