Roger Clemens

Roger Clemens is the best pitcher the New York Yankees had during the dynasty -- and somehow that fact sits completely sideways with everything else we know about the man.

Seven Cy Young Awards. 354 wins. 4,672 strikeouts (third all-time). A 20-3 season at age 39. He pitched in the Bronx for parts of six years, went 83-42, won two rings, and turned in one of the most dominant stretches any starting pitcher has ever had in October. He's also the guy who beaned Mike Piazza in the head, then threw a broken bat at him during the World Series. He lied to Congress (allegedly -- the jury acquitted him, though the jury was working with what they were given). The Baseball Hall of Fame has kept him out for over a decade.

It's a lot. Let's get into it.

The Trade That Looked Like Daylight Robbery

The Yankees got Clemens on February 18, 1999 -- Clemens for David Wells, Homer Bush, and Graeme Lloyd. Wells was coming off a perfect game. And the Yankees still won that trade by about 400 miles.

Clemens arrived in pinstripes already carrying three Cy Youngs from Boston and two more from Toronto, where he'd just won the pitching Triple Crown back-to-back -- 21-7 with a 2.05 ERA in 1997, then 20-6 with a 2.65 ERA in 1998. He was 36 years old and had been the best pitcher in baseball for the previous two seasons. George Steinbrenner acquired the best pitcher in baseball and then complained he wasn't dominant enough in his first year. (Classic George.)

His 1999 wasn't great -- 14-10, 4.60 ERA, serviceable but not Clemens -- but the Yankees went 98-64 and won the World Series anyway. He started Game 4 of the Fall Classic, the clinching game against the Braves, and threw 7.2 innings of one-run ball in a 4-1 win. Ring one in the bag.

The Dynasty's Ace Peak

The 2000 season was cleaner: 13-8, 3.70 ERA, 188 strikeouts. Pettitte was the dynasty's workhorse, but Clemens was its hammer -- the guy you sent out when the narrative of the series demanded someone who could just dominate a ballgame and end the conversation.

The 2001 season was flat-out insane. Clemens went 20-3 with a 3.51 ERA and 213 strikeouts at age 39. He won his sixth Cy Young Award. He became the first pitcher in MLB history to start a season 20-1. The Yankees went 27-5-1 in his starts -- a win percentage that doesn't feel real when you type it out. On June 13, 2003, he got his 300th career win and 4,000th career strikeout in the same game. (That second one is an almost absurd level of efficiency in terms of the history being made per start.)

The Bat Incident (We're Not Burying This)

Game 2 of the 2000 World Series. Clemens is on the mound against Piazza's Mets -- the Subway Series. First inning, Piazza shatters his bat on a pitch, and the barrel goes skidding toward the mound. Clemens fields it. Then, instead of doing literally anything normal, he fires the barrel across the first-base line -- right across Piazza's path as he's running to first.

Piazza stopped, turned, walked toward the mound. Both benches emptied. Nobody threw a punch, but the moment hung in the air like a fog. Clemens later said he thought the barrel was the baseball and he was throwing it out of the way out of instinct. Piazza, to his credit, pointed out that this explanation didn't really make any sense. The Commissioner's office fined Clemens $50,000. Joe Torre later said that between innings Clemens came to the manager's office -- where pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre was watching from, too sick from cancer to be in the dugout -- and that Stottlemyre told Torre that Clemens "was devastated at what had just transpired and that he was crying."

(Torre told that story on SNY in 2022 and put it in "The Yankee Years." The crying detail humanizes Clemens in a way he'd probably hate.)

The incident didn't happen in a vacuum, either. Four months earlier -- July 8, 2000 -- Clemens had hit Piazza in the head with a fastball during a regular-season interleague game, giving him a concussion. So when the bat went flying in October, every person watching knew the history. That's why the benches emptied.

He threw 8 innings of two-hit ball and struck out 9 in that game. The Yankees won. He got the W. It's all in the box score -- right next to the $50,000 fine.

The Mitchell Report and the Hall of Fame Void

The career arc ends where it always ends for Clemens: the Mitchell Report. December 13, 2007 -- released just months after his final pitch, a strikeout of Victor Martinez in the ALDS against Cleveland before a hamstring gave out and ended his comeback season with the Yankees (6-6, 4.18 ERA in 18 starts, including his 350th career win on July 2 vs. Minnesota).

Trainer Brian McNamee alleged he'd injected Clemens with steroids and HGH during the span covering 1998-2001 -- the exact seasons that made Clemens look superhuman at ages 35-39. Clemens did what Clemens does: he went scorched-earth. He went on 60 Minutes, held press conferences, taped a phone call with McNamee, and flew to Capitol Hill in February 2008 to tell Congress under oath that he'd never taken steroids or HGH. A grand jury indicted him for perjury in August 2010. A first trial ended in a mistrial in 2011 due to prosecutorial misconduct. The jury acquitted him on all six counts in June 2012.

Legally cleared. Practically finished.

He spent ten years on the BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot, 2013 through 2022. His support kept climbing -- 37.6%, then 45%, then 54%, eventually topping out at 65.2% in his final year. Never cracked 75%. He fell off the ballot the same year as Barry Bonds, which tells you something about how the writers felt about both of them. In December 2025, both went before the Contemporary Era Committee. Jeff Kent got in. Clemens and Bonds didn't get five votes between them (they're voted on separately, but you take my point). His next shot is 2031.

Here's the thing about Roger Clemens and the Hall of Fame: the career stats are genuinely third-all-time territory. 354-184. 4,672 strikeouts. 139.2 WAR, behind only Walter Johnson and Cy Young. Seven Cy Youngs, which is more than anyone else ever. McNamee's allegations covered 1998 through 2001 -- the exact window where Clemens went from great aging veteran to apparently ageless phenomenon. That's either the most damning coincidence in baseball history or proof of something. The voters made their call. The committee made theirs.

The dynasty got two rings out of him. The 2001 season -- 20-3, first pitcher in history to start 20-1, Jeter's team going 27-5-1 in his starts -- stands as the single best individual pitching season by a Yankee starter in the dynasty era. Rivera closed the door. Clemens blew it off the hinges. Bernie hit. Pettitte competed. Clemens pitched -- 20-3 at age 39 with Mr. Splitty as his weapon of choice -- and the Yankees won 27 of those 33 starts.

That season is in the record books and it's real, whatever you think about the rest of it.