Rocket Fuel: Embracing the Untarninshed Part of Roger Clemens' Legacy

My first baseball glove was a Roger Clemens edition Rawlings. It was a hand-me-down from my cousin Will, and by the time I first felt its floppy rawhide over my sweaty palm, Roger was only a few years away from eating his way out of Boston. But I didn't care. He was The Rocket. And every time he took the mound, my heart hung on each strike, waiting and hoping to see the next "K," the next small proof of his greatness I was witnessing. When Dan Duquette let Roger leave for the Toronto Blue Jays after the 1996 season, the Boston public was torn. Half, angrily hung onto nostalgia, and cited the second to last game he pitched for Boston, when he struck out 20 batters for the second time in his career, as cause to believe he would have turned it around. The other half was content to see him leave, choosing to believe Duquette, who notoriously suggested Clemens was entering the twilight of his career. I was devastated. As soon as I read the headline in The Boston Globe that Roger had signed ... (link)