So yeah, I stick with my early morning assessment that the Boston Red Sox don't need Roger Clemens.
Especially now that I've seen more facts - that the Yankees will pay Clemens the equivalent of $28 million a season, with the luxury tax (a staggering $7.5 million in tax alone), the total costs come to $6.3 million a month - or about a million a game he starts.
Dang.
Here are a few fun news stories in case you want to hear more.
Shaughnessy starts by reminding us that Clemens is old. Way old. That he was a rookie in Boston in 1984, "the year after Carl Yastrzemski retired". It gets meaner after that (with a detour to take a potshot or two at Curt Schilling). Why hasn't Shaughnessy coined some phrase like, "The Curse of the Clemens"? "The Bane of Boston"? "The Jinx of the Rocket"? (C'mon, you know that Shaughnessy's laptop computer has about 5 mb full of these ideas).
"There's going to come a time -- and who knows, maybe it's this season -- when Roger Clemens isn't going to be successful every fifth day when he takes the mound."
Oooooooh. I like.
But he does point out that this isn't good for Boston, per se. "And it's a double-whammy: losing Clemens and having him go to the enemy."
"Bostonist never was quite sure how we felt about the idea of Clemens coming back here; obviously we're willing to forgive and forget - well, forgive, anyway - but it's not all that easy to mop up all the bad blood that's been spilled in the relationship since Roger bolted town in '96. Now he's cemented his reputation 'round these parts as a soulless mercenary, which is definitely easier for all of us than having mixed emotions."
Genius.
Plus the story is accented with a photo of Clemens and his wife from Sports Illustrated (while he was with the Yankees, no less).
"Face it: If you're going to pick a team to win the World Series right now, the Yankees aren't going to be it. Clemens or no Clemens.
"I mean, the Yankees? If Clemens wanted to win another World Series, wouldn't the Red Sox have been the smarter choice? The Sox have a better bullpen. They have a better rotation. They're younger and healthier and they're better looking and they're probably smarter and they have - not an insignificant point, this one - a 5 1/2-game head start."
Wow. Rough stuff.
"This is Clemens' choice? The man either has a lot of misguided faith in that team or an unhealthy belief in his own ability to change the course of baseball events."
