Rocket Redux

All right - Teddy was supposed to start this, but I'll take the lead on this, much the way the Sox are doing in the AL East, and leave Teddy in the dust, much the way the Yankees are currently situated.

So the Texas Con Man is back in the Bronx. I would be lying if I said that I didn't have a reaction to this.

I'd also be lying if I said that I wasn't hoping for him to come back to Boston. I mean, he only needed one more victory in a Red Sox uniform to surpass Cy Young as the winningest pitcher in club history. Fortunately, we have Tim Wakefield clocking in at 3rd on the list. Since he will probably pitch well into his 50s, he will probably surpass them both.

It would have been a fairy tale ending. As a Sox fan, I began to forgive Clemens after his comments about Boston in '03 and the way he screwed over Yankees' ownership in the wake of his first faux retireMment.

I certainly entertained visions of a sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows world in which he came back to Boston both last year and this year. It would have allowed me to feel good about rooting for the first great sports star of my youth without reservation all over again.

There really isn't any point in trying to turn this into something witty - years ago, Bill Simmons, the erstwhile Boston Sports Guy, wrote the column which posed the question, "Is Roger Clemens the Anti-Christ?" which covers the ground so perfectly it would be a disservice to try and top it here.

My father is one of the posterchildren for Red Sox nation - the eternal pessimist - and it's his rhetoric that I will turn to here.

I remember when Pedro signed with the Mets after the '04 season, his rationale was that the Mets' showed him more "respect". To my father, "respect" for Pedro always transalated into "a dollar sign followed by a crooked number and a long string of zeroes seperated by commas".

This past offseason (I can't remember where the Sox overbidding and the Yankees underbidding on Dice-K fits into this chronology), the Yankees stated that they would not be outbid for Clemens' services. They would, in my father's cynical view, show him the most respect.

By all accounts, the Red Sox made a decent offer to Clemens, but the Yankees trumped it. I suppose either "respect" or "Andy Pettite" ended up being the deciding factor. Clemens eschewed the storybook ending, and went back to the Bronx.

I will defy Teddy to claim that Clemens' return to the Bronx means anything close to him what the Rocket's return to Boston would have meant to me. For Yankees' fans, what's the difference between Giambi, A-Fraud, Abreu, Mussina, and Clemens, really? Aren't they all just hired guns? You might care about them while they're defending the family ranch from desperadoes, but would you really invite them over for dinner and drinks?

Yankees fans in the '80s had Mattingly. Red Sox fans in the '80s had Clemens.

How would Yankees fans have felt if Mattingly had fled to Boston to win a World Series?

Exactly.

Of course, Mattingly has more character than Clemens, and would never do that. The Rocket's comeback confirms the worst of everything that has ever been said about him.

The most cringeworthy of the many cringeworthy things that Curt Schilling has said lately is "We don't need him," when referring to Clemens.

I took that as a sign that Schilling, Beckett, Dice-K, and Wakefield's right arms would all simultaneously fall completely of their bodies - much in the style of Pedro Martinez (Go Mets!).

Fortunately, Beckett then went out and trumped Clemens' best start in a Sox unifrom, while Dice-K went north of the border and pitched like he was worth 100 million (Canadian) Dollars.

The way the Sox are built now, I can't help but agree with the loud-mouthed right-hander from Anchorage.

The last two seasons, the Red Sox kicked off the season by mashing their way to respectability until their pitching staff was exposed.

This season, the Sox really don't seem to be hitting (their stats still don't look that impressive after two straight games in which they scored 9 runs) but the pitching is getting it done.

And that offense will come around. It's the second-biggest offensive juggernaut in New England (Brady to Moss).

What really impresses me is the bullpen. Papelbon, restored to the closer role, has been nails. But the real bullpen MVP to me has been Okajima. The Red Sox had a great closer in '04 in Foulke, but the Embree/Timlin set-up crew was always a bit suspect. To find something akin to Okajima/Papelbon, you'd have to go back to the days when Derek Lowe was setting up Flash Gordon.

I know my history too well to count the Yankees out (unless they're leading the ALCS 3-0) so I'm not going to fall into the Red Sox National trap of writing off the Yankees at this early stage. It's entirely possible that come July 31st Cashman will trade Igawa and Pavano to the Twins for Santana (and get the Twins to pay off the rest of Santana's contract) - a lot can happen in a 162 game season. The Yankees clearly need starting pitching, and I can't even begin to speculate what the Red Sox mid-season needs may be (beware injuries), but I think after the rather disappointing aspect of the rivalry the last two seasons, we're going to return to '03-'04 levels.