Thursday, December 20, 2007

Nothing To Prove

Roger Clemens has nothing to prove.

He has 354 wins and 4,672 strikeouts and seven Cy Young Awards and two World Series titles in 24 big-league seasons. And he pitched one of the finest postseason games in history against the Seattle Mariners in the 2000 American League Championship Series.

He is the greatest pitcher of his generation and probably the greatest of any generation.

The guys gathered around Juan Carlos’s coffee cart this morning hadn’t forgotten any of that.

“I’ll always remember that Seattle game,” says Javier. “I started watching it alone in my apartment and after the seventh inning I went down to the bodega on Gerard Avenue and found some guys that were listening on the radio. Roger was dominating and intimidating. It was incredible. I just couldn’t be alone for something like that.”

No one in this neighborhood is going to abandon Clemens because he was blacklisted by George Mitchell.

“We’ll always be behind Roger,” Javier says. “He was always there for us and he always gave his best. What else can you ask from a man?”

Some have taken his career and life apart in the last week.

“There ain’t much to say for people who run others down,” Javier says shaking his head. “I guess anyone can say anything about anybody, but that doesn’t make it right.

“Roger has already responded to the allegations in Mitchell’s report,” Javier continues. “He said he didn’t do any of it. People out there can believe whatever they want to believe, but Roger’s got nothing to prove around here.”

2 comments:

Pete said...

This comes down to who wants to hear what. People that want to tear Roger down will jump on this and they are going to believe what they want. The “court of public opinion” has never been more slanted than it is today. George Mitchell should have thought about that before he released a list of names with no proof of guilt and no way for these men to prove their innocence.

Donna said...

I hope Mitchell didn’t realize what releasing those names would do because that would only make him incompetent. If he even suspected it would go like this and still released the names then he is a despicable person.