Clemens gets first chance to secure his 300th win

NEW YORK -- If only the New York Mets had scrounged up $15,000 more, it might have all been different for Roger Clemens.

His best friend could have been his catcher, Mike Piazza. He could have beaten the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees in the World Series. He could have been closing in on 350 victories.

And there would be no debate about which cap he'd wear on his Hall of Fame plaque -- it would have an "NY" logo, all right, but it'd be written in curlicue Mets script.

Instead, he turned down the Mets after they picked him in the 12th round of the June 1981 draft. He wanted $25,000, the team countered with $10,000.

"My father had just died, and the Mets' offer wasn't comparable to the Social Security benefits my family would have lost if I'd gone to work playing baseball," Clemens recalled.

Well, the Rocket turned out more than OK.

Today, he is scheduled to start in New York pinstripes on what could be a historic afternoon at Yankee Stadium. Against his former Red Sox team -- fittingly -- he'll make his first try at earning his 300th career victory.

"It's another milestone, a number that all the great ones have achieved," Clemens said a few days ago. "I would've never thought of it a long time ago.

"Probably after my first or second year with the Yankees, everybody talked about it, about how difficult it was to do. At 200 wins, you don't think about it."

Yet ever since making his major league debut for Boston in 1984, Clemens has been defined by huge numbers -- a record six Cy Young Awards, nearly 4,000 strikeouts and a pair of games in which he fanned 20.

Now, he's on the brink of becoming the 21st pitcher to reach 300 wins. Along the way, the 40-year-old Clemens has also built a reputation as big as his broad shoulders and thick torso.

A strong-willed Longhorn who clings to his Texas roots. A teacher who leads by example. Oh, and a tough guy who likes to throw inside, be it with a fastball or the shattered barrel of a bat.

Mets fans still can't stand Clemens for the way he beaned Piazza and later tossed a broken bat in his direction, and a brushback to Alex Rodriguez once nearly set off a beanball battle in the AL playoffs.

Yankees teammate Mike Mussina grinned as he remembered how his old Baltimore Orioles club regarded Clemens.

"I don't think from the opponent's side that any of us thought too highly of him, other than he could dominate the game," Mussina said Sunday.

"He was known to throw a few bow ties to hitters. He was probably pitching a generation too late," he said. "But once you get to know a guy in your own clubhouse, your view changes."

Clemens used to stare in a bit more at umpires -- a run-in with Terry Cooney once got him ejected from an AL championship series game at Oakland.

But Clemens can intimidate in other ways, too.

There was the time young Yankees left-hander Ted Lilly wanted to tag along with Clemens for one of his grueling workouts. Not a good idea, especially when Lilly ate a sandwich before getting started.

"A few guys have lost their lunch trying to keep up with Roger," Yankees manager Joe Torre said.

Once, it was Clemens who wanted emulate others.

He grew up outside Houston idolizing Nolan Ryan and was almost speechless when he first met him in 1980. Years later, after pitching against Ryan for the first time, Clemens asked for a photographer's pictures so he could compare motions.

Ryan went on to become baseball's all-time strikeout leader and won 324 games. He followed Clemens' progress when he left the University of Texas.

"But there was no way to anticipate he was going to have the career he did," Ryan said.

In 1986, Tom Seaver closed his 311-win career with the Red Sox. Often studying him was Clemens, on the way to becoming the AL MVP and Cy Young winner.

"He came to me a couple times, he asked me a couple things," Seaver said Sunday. "One of the things about the game of baseball is that you learn by watching.

"You've got a golden nugget like that, you don't do too much. You don't foul it up, you know? Even when I was there at just the start of his career, he didn't need much help," he said.

Said Clemens: "Watching him, I found myself nodding a lot."

Clemens didn't have much to say when Boston let him go after the 1996 season. He'd tied Cy Young's team record of 192 victories, but after going 40-39 in the previous four years, then-general manager Dan Duquette said Clemens was in the "twilight" of his career.

"That situation was a long time ago," Clemens said recently, adding, "I know I wouldn't be a Hall of Famer if I'd listened to those guys in Boston."

"I was never in control of Roger Clemens' career," Duquette said.

After two Cy Young seasons with Toronto, Clemens gladly took a trade to the Bronx. With the Yankees, he won the thing that he said really mattered to him, a World Series ring.

And now, he's truly in the twilight. Lately, he repeated that he intends to retire after this season.

Five years after leaves, Cooperstown will come calling and Clemens insists he wants a Yankees emblem on his Hall plaque.

The Red Sox, meanwhile, are under new management and might someday make a move to retire his No. 21 at Fenway Park -- even though the Boston crowd booed him last Wednesday night when he got his 299th victory.

"Fans care so much, it's like with your family," said 29-year-old Red Sox GM Theo Epstein, who grew up rooting for Clemens. "You're going to have the biggest fights with the people you care about."

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