The Red Sox
inducted four people into the team's Hall of Fame yesterday—broadcaster
Joe Castiglione,
Nomar Garciaparra,
Pedro Martinez and
Roger Clemens. The first three were deserving of the honor—the last is a shameful travesty. The entire day's events were cloaked in an
Orwellian Fantasy World where there are no suspicions about PED use by Clemens. Accolades were heaped on the man as if he were the cleanest player ever to don
Carmine Hose. Let's look at the facts. In his final two seasons with the Red Sox (ages 32-33), Clemens amassed a
20-18 record with an ERA of 4.26—pretty pedestrian numbers. In his
next two seasons with Toronto (ages 34-35) he went
41-13 with 2.33 ERA. I guess we're supposed believe that Clemens—unlike every other pitcher in memory—improved like fine wine with advanced age. But this isn't even the
half of it. In 2005, Clemens pitched for his hometown Houston Astros (
at age 42), where he put together the following numbers:
13-8 with a 1.87 ERA. He threw 211.1 innings and struck out 185 batters. He then went on to pitch until age 44—garnering 13 more wins (including 6 more for
The Evil Ones—coming out of 'retirement' to the creepy wailings of
Suzyn Waldman). Suspicious?
Nah!!! In our view, the Red Sox cheapened the achievements of their other three inductees by forcing them to be associated with the likes of Clemens.
