How many years is roger clemens facing

On September 18th at Tiger Stadium , he logged 20 strikeouts again, mauling the Tigers in a five-hitter. He made only two more appearances with the Sox that season, then became a free agent. Dan Duquette , then Boston General Manager, made comments he would forever regret by claiming that Roger was in the "twilight of his career". With something to prove, Clemens headed up north and returned to complete and utter dominance.

In , he won his fourth Cy Young Award , winning the pitching Triple Crown behind a record, 2. In his first game with the Blue Jays, April 2nd , he struck out 9 members of the Chicago White Sox ; it stood as the team record for a player in his debut for Toronto until David Price struck out 11 on August 3 , On July 12 , Rog made his return to Fenway Park and thoroughly humiliated his old club, allowing just an earned run on 4 hits with 16 strikeouts in 8 innings, a Blue Jays victory.

His next time at Fenway, in September, he merely struck out 10 in 7 innings, angrily glowering at the owner's box whenever he could. For an encore, in , Roger calmly won a second straight pitching Triple Crown and Cy Young Award , finishing , 2. On August 25th , he thoroughly humbled the Kansas City Royals to the tune of 18 strikeouts in a three-hit shutout at SkyDome. But all was not well for Roger. A competitor at heart, he asked out of town following his second season, feeling he would never play for a winner with our neighbors to the north.

With an ace like Roger in the fold, the Yankees continued their stretch of dominance. Though he was not all-world in , finishing , 4. In , Roger became a little more ornery en route to a , 3. In the postseason, he was accused by Lou Piniella of being a headhunter after spinning a one-hit shutout with an ALCS single-game record 15 strikeouts while buzzing Alex Rodriguez 's tower against the Mariners. In Game 2 of the World Series , against the Mets in the first Subway Series in years, he once again tangled with Piazza, picking up the shard of a broken bat of Mike's from a foul ball and angrily tossing it at him, nearly triggering a brawl.

Amid all the rumbling grumblies, despite an 8. In , Roger came out of the gate guns blazing. He became the first man to start a season , shattering Elroy Face 's start for the Pittsburgh Pirates in He finished his final win season , becoming the first Yankee hurler to win 20 games with such few losses since "Louisiana Lightning" Ron Guidry in his magical campaign. He won his sixth Cy Young Award , becoming the final Yankee as of to earn the honor. In his third straight World Series , he was with a 1.

He was solid in , with a , 3. Early in the season, he announced he would retire at season's end, being given fond farewells at every ballpark in which he made a final appearance. He began the march to the immortal victories ; while trying to do it against his old club, the Red Sox , he used a special logoed glove , an act that rankled manager Grady Little , who asked that it be removed.

The umpire consented and Clemens, who lost the game, was forced to use his normal glove. He did the deal on June 13th against the St. Louis Cardinals , while also recording his 4,th strikeout, the only man to earn both milestones in the same game. In his final start of the season, he allowed 3 runs in 7 innings, earning a standing ovation from the Florida Marlins in game 4 of the World Series at Pro Player Stadium on October 22nd.

But much like many other proud Texans, professional wrestler Terry Funk chief among them, this retirement was not about to stick. Clemens was wooed by the Houston Astros , who had successfully courted his old pal Andy Pettitte , and agreed to a one-year deal mere months after his retirement.

In what could have been his first year of retirement, he merely went on to win his first National League Cy Young Award , his seventh overall, in , going with a 2. At 42, he became the oldest winner of the award.

Incidentally, he was rocked by American League batters, to such an extent that there was speculation that his catcher, old pal Mike Piazza, was tipping pitches in a continuation of their long-running feud. When the Astros offered arbitration for , he delayed retirement one more time, becoming the winningest living pitcher on May 9th when he passed Steve Carlton on the all-time list. He established a record with a tenth appearance in an All-Star Game that season, pitching a scoreless inning at Comerica Park.

Suffering a hamstring pull in September, he was limited from September on as the Astros made their first World Series appearance, a four-game sweep at the hands of the Chicago White Sox. The Astros non-tendered Clemens on December 7th , which prevented them from re-signing him before May 1st of the season. On May 31st , it was announced he was coming out of retirement again to re-join the Astros for the remainder of the season.

Clemens made his first appearance of the season on June 22nd against the Minnesota Twins , losing to rookie Francisco Liriano , He ended the season with a record and 2. In , Clemens sent Yankee announcer Suzyn Waldman into a state of hysteria when he announced on May 6th that he was coming back to the Bronx and a Yankee club in desperate need of starting pitching. With the Yankee bullpen worn out, Clemens volunteered to relieve on June 24th against the San Francisco Giants , having not pitched out of the bullpen since July 18 , , as a rookie.

It was a major league-record 22 years, days between relief stints, easily shattering the record of 15 years, days set by Steve Carlton from to On July 2nd , he pitched eight innings of two-hit ball against the Minnesota Twins to pick up his th career victory, becoming the first pitcher since Warren Spahn in to reach this milestone.

On August 18th , he became the first pitcher to allow a home run to a hitter who was not yet born at the time the pitcher first won a Cy Young Award ; Cameron Maybin was the batter. In a match-up of game winners , he faced Greg Maddux twice after they each passed the game mark. His record in these match-ups was He finally retired from MLB for real after the season, leaving his final start, Game 3 of the ALDS against the Cleveland Indians , not with a bang but with a whimper, departing to a pulled hamstring.

The failure to achieve high-school stardom resulted in the season that launched Clemens on the path to professional greatness. What Graham did with Clemens — turning a soft-tossing youth into a flamethrower — was an equally impressive accomplishment. He preached to Clemens that he needed to finish hard on his pitches or he would never have a chance to realize his dream of pitching in the major leagues, a message Clemens took to heart as he finished his sole season at San Jacinto with a record while the college won the Texas Junior College Athletic Association championship.

Graham anticipated that Clemens would remain at San Jacinto for a second year, an expectation that was buoyed when Clemens turned down an offer from the New York Mets, who had selected him in the 12th round of the draft. He had been contacted by University of Texas Longhorns coach Cliff Gustafson, who was now interested in the improved pitcher.

Clemens fulfilled expectations at Texas , although there were some hiccups along the way. The Longhorns began their season with a game winning streak that was one win shy of tying the NCAA record.

Clemens, who had begun the campaign , pitched in game number 34 but lost to the University of Houston. It was later revealed that he had bursitis while pitching that game, and he missed the next two weeks of the season.

He finished with a 1. The Longhorns suffered under the burden of high expectations in and plodded through an up-and down season. 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.

Instead, Kosc ruled that Clemens had missed first base and called Baines safe, which allowed what ended up being the winning run to score for the White Sox. But here we are, in the ninth year on the Hall of Fame ballot, and Clemens is still short of election, and running out of time. The seven ERA titles, while leading the league in strikeouts five times and victories four times?

Producing the third-highest WAR for a pitcher in baseball history Or how about his sheer dominance pitching in the heart of the steroid era, when teams were hitting 3, homers during his first full season in to 5, in Clemens never tested positive, never flunked a single drug test, never admitted to steroid use, but no one believes he was clean.