Clemens is back - Part 2 - a (partly) emotional response

Well I think having a dig at Simmons for this is a bit rich - not quite as rich as Roger, but still.

Bill has jumped on Roger's Boston grave often enough to know that he is simply repeating a position that he has held since Roger first wanted to be closer to his family in Texas... and promptly moved to Toronto.

You can claim to love bitter fans all you like, but what do you expect? They shouldn't be bitter? They should act rationally because if he had signed with our team things would be different?

What can diehard Red Sox fans who actually witnessed Roger coming through the system, who witnessed the highs - and the very real lows - of following a hero for a very long time actually make of his behaviour? We are talking about a generation of fans who were in their early teens as he made his debut with the Sox, who considered Roger their player, who will have idolized him irrationally given their age and the impact that sports had on their life at that time... what do you actually expect?

The analogy here for, lets say a hypothetical Portsmouth fan, is a player that Portsmouth brought through the ranks... who achieves dizzying success - one of the most sustained high level performers the sport has ever seen - but who gets stale from having been with the team for a long time... who states that he wants to move to Manchester to be nearer his family... then moves to Fulham... but who it turns out had an illegal agreement with Fulham to ship him to Southampton after a couple of seasons - you are telling me that the hpothetical Portsmouth fan would have just shrugged their shoulders?

And then having actually moved to Manchester to have that final homecoming, he starts suggesting that maybe after all he would like to bury the hatchet, that one final hurrah with his old team would really be quite cool... and then... you know what, Southampton offered him more money, so he is going back there for one final stab at the Championship, in direct opposition to Portsmouth... given how fans react to local rivals... I am sure that the hypothetical Portsmouth fan would have just shrugged their shoulders and said... I love bitter fans, I really do!

I will update this post later for the links - but if you don't think that Roger has impacted how he is received in Houston, you need to do a bit more reading! If you think that Roger didn't impact his reception in NY the last time he left then do a bit of searching for NY Post and Daily News headlines from the time, or even Cashman's quotes on how Roger left without arbitration protection costing the Yankees a high draft pick... you may be the ultimate Clemens fan, but that doesn't make his behaviour any more pleasant to those of us who don't quite see his actions in quite the same rose tinted light.

As for his reception on Sunday in the Bronx... seriously? Those fans have been asked to watch pitching of such pathetic quality for a month that if Kevin Brown had stood in the owner's box and said he was coming back he may have gotten a half decent cheer.

But heck I don't blame the Yankees - if the Red Sox had gone this long without a World Series I am sure we would be pretty desperate as well.