My Mind on Shuffle

Granted, the fact that I'm a Red Sox fan is partly to blame for my bitterness towards Roger Clemens.  The fact that his move to the National league put him in position to throw against the Cubs fairly regularly didn't help.  But let's take a moment to examine just a few of the ways in which Roger Clemens sucks.

• He sold out fans / teams in not only Boston, but also Toronto and New York.  Let's not forget, before his first stint with the Astros, he got the hero's fairwell retirement tour and treatment from the Yankees.  Only to go play in Houston when they threw a new Hummer (Grrrr) and an ass load of cash at him.
• While being undoubtedly one of the best pitchers of this or any generation, let's not forget his feud with Mike Piazza (seriously, that pussy?), which included him throwing a piece of Piazza's broken bat at him as he ran the bases.  As though Piazza had diabolically schemed for his bat to snap in half and fly in Clemen's general direction.  Fun to think about, but physically improbable.  This also included Clemens throwing at everyone on the Mets but the bat boys.  What a douche.
• His return to the Astros included clauses granting him a private jet and dispensation to not travel with the team when he wasn't scheduled to pitch.  Somehow he gets credit as being a "team leader" and "clubhouse presence".  Right.  When he's actually there.
• Upon his second unretirement, he couldn't just go back to the Astros.  He had to turn it into a huge bidding war between four different teams.  Nice.  Clearly he's coming back for the love of the game and Houston's organization.  Clearly.
• His new contract: $22,000,022* for one year, prorated for missed time equalling out to $14 Mil for about four months of baseball.  He figures to be with the Major League club by the end of June.  Figuring about five starts a month, that puts him in line for roughly sixteen starts.  That works out to nearly $900,000 per start.  Figure he averages six innings a game, that's $150,000 an inning.  Figure fifteen pitches an inning on average for a good pitcher we're talking $10,000 per pitch.  In real world terms, let's say an inning lasts, again on average, seven and a half minutes.  That means Clemens is in line to make $1.2 Million dollars an hour.
• Despite those depressing dollar figures, we're supposed to believe the thing that makes it so special is the fact that his son is part of the organization.  Never mind the fact that he's in the minors, so they'll be together for maybe a few weeks while Clemens gets back into shape.  Yup, those three more days he'll spend with his son sure will be special.

Bottom line: what an asshole.

*His uniform number is 22.  Putting the extra 22 dollars in the contract is so ridiculous it makes me want to puke.  Did the Astros dot the i's in the contract with little hearts too?