Cooperstown can wait

Clemens staves off retirement for another chance at glory

Q & A    Roger Clemens  Photo Credits: AP, Chuck Solomon/SI, AP

Once Roger Clemens finally decides to quit the game that has made him rich and famous -- quit for real, we mean -- he can go ahead and book the plane tickets for his Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Getting to Cooperstown on time won't be the hard part for Clemens. Quitting, evidently, is.

After 310 wins and more than 4,000 strikeouts, Clemens decided to end two decades in the game after the New York Yankees lost in last year's World Series. But his decision to retire came before his buddy, lefty Andy Pettitte, jilted the Yankees and signed with the Houston Astros. That changed everything.

Now, the 41-year-old Clemens will join Pettitte in Houston, for one year, pitching in his hometown, in the swan song to a remarkable career. Clemens sat down with SI.com's John Donovan at the Astros' spring training home in Kissimmee, Fla., recently for this Q&A session.

SI.com: You talked a lot about spending more time with your family in retirement. This isn't retirement, but will you be able to do things with your family now that you couldn't do while you were living in New York or Boston or Toronto?

RC: That's a key. Since all my boys [Clemens has four sons; Koby, Kory, Kacy and Kody, ranging in age from 17 to 7] are really locked in and have both feet in school at home, you can't pull them out and drag them around like we used to do with the two older ones when they were little. So, for stability reasons, they have to be locked in to what they're doing. My oldest one, he doesn't even hardly have a spring break planned on varsity baseball. So, yeah, you take them to school. I'll be a little bit more 'round the clock as far as going to my office, the foundation, seeing how things are working there. There will be quite a few different things. I'm going to be a little more visible at home.

SI.com: But things have worked so well for you over the years the way you've done them. Are you afraid that this new system might mess up your formula?

RC: No. We balance it extremely well. Whether we work at the stadium in the morning or whatever ... we have a great program, those things won't change. Regardless of that, anything happens in your personal life, you deal with that, that's first and foremost anyway.

SI.com: A good day of traffic in Houston ... how long from your front door to the clubhouse at Minute Maid Park?

RC: Takes me probably 14 minutes, my driveway to the parking lot. Maybe 15. With no traffic. After the game a little more.

SI.com: Everything seemed to fall together just perfectly for this move to Houston to happen. Fate? A little leftover Yankee magic, maybe?

RC: I look at it in a number of ways. I don't know if it's fate or magic. I felt like it was great how the city poured its heart out and the enthusiasm they showed toward Andy once Andy signed. We wouldn't be sitting here talking if Andy hadn't been there. I'd be sitting there watching these guys, sitting with my [Astros] season tickets. I have season tickets, had them for a number of years at home. I've brought my boys, and their friends, and friends of ours go sit in our seats and watch the guys perform. I was looking forward to sitting in my own seats. I had something planned in New York, too, to go see Andy and golf, maybe do some work up there. And then, of course, all that changed once he signed. All the neat stuff he's done, pushing me over the last five or six years, has been great. Now we get to do it one more year together, in our hometown. That's the way I look at it. Having put everything in the mix, if you spill it out on the table, there was definitely more positive than not to embark on it again.

SI.com: Still, I'm sure there were some negatives you took into consideration. Like dealing with all these questions again.

RC: No. I have no problem with the media.

SI.com: Well, you've been hammered with interview requests since you signed. I'd think all this stuff takes up some time.

RC: If you let it. If you don't have time, you don't do it, because you can't let it interfere with your work. And I don't think there's too much that hasn't been said. I've been doing this for 21 years. There's not too many ways you can rewrite it.

SI.com: How about other negatives in coming back to play for another year. Did you make a list?

RC: Well, some of the negatives were still traveling, and being away from home. Having the balance, equally, so your work counts for something here -- but I gave my word to my kids that I would be there to watch them perform. Like I said, I have two in high school. I'm gonna blink and they're going to be done. My mother's health. Delaying myself to get into the Hall another year. And they're all 1s. They're not 1 and 2 and 3. They're all 1s to me. And the last one would be to get out there and run those laps and kill ourselves to get ready to do this so you can perform at a high level. But that helps, when you have somebody [Pettitte] that buys into the program with you and pushes you and gets you going. I think that, out of everything, it makes your mind clear, it keeps you sane in this game that can drive you a little bit crazy. The game drives you batty at times. Let's face it. If you don't have any pride, then it might not bother you. But if you have pride in what you do and high expectations to perform, then it's great. Those are the only negatives. The positives, again, were having him here. This team being such a great team. A lot of talent here on this team. Being at home. The kids were excited about it, after they learned about it. And my body felt good. I ended this past season with pretty good health, unlike other years where I had a lot of swelling in my joints.

SI.com: You've been through a lot of spring training camps. Was that a negative for you? Do you like spring training?

RC: We need spring training. We need to have the intensity. We need to get locked in, especially when you're in a new organization. They have different stations that we're learning, so Andy and I had to back off our program until we got up to speed on what they're expecting. It was definitely a big transition for him, being his first [new] club. This is my fourth. We need this. By the end of the sixth week, we're ready to go, though.

SI.com: You're such a serious-minded guy, Roger. Everything you do, it seems you do with such intensity. When it came to returning for another year, did having fun ever enter into the equation? I mean, do you have fun out there?

RC: Yeah. Afterwards. Winning's fun. When I come off the field and when I see other people having success. You know, I've had success. I've been there and done that. You still expect to do it, so it still wears on you when you don't perform well. Doesn't matter how many years or how old you are. It still wears on you. But, again, that kind of comes hand in hand with what you expect of yourself. Yeah, I'm very serious about what I do out there. I want to perform well. People are paying good money to come watch us play and try to win. So I take it seriously. People drive a long way to do that. It might be their only game for the summer that they come to, to bring their family. It might be the only thing they can afford to do, see that one game. So, yeah, it's very important. And afterward, I'll get with these guys, cutting up away from the park. We'll have a good time.

SI.com: But do you have fun playing?

RC: Yeah, if I'm not [pitching]. I'll do some things that are funny that don't seem funny to me at the time. Andy and the other guys, they'll let into me. When you dish it out, you got to be able to take it a little bit. It's good to be able to have those relationships with the guys.

SI.com: All right. A couple of questions about age. We all make concessions to age. Have you made any?

RC: Yeah. I know that it's taken me a little bit more time to recover the day after I pitch than normal. I'm having to ice maybe a few more times in between starts than I'd like to. Certain parts. But as long as my body bounces back, it's been great.

SI.com: How about mentally? Is it harder as you get older to pitch like you want to pitch?

RC: Not really. Mentally, I've been staying pretty sharp. I've really been able to focus on the big teams that come in that are your rivals, and still be able to focus on the teams that you're supposed to beat. I think that's really important, what we've taught some of these young guys, that somebody like, when you face Boston or somebody like that, that you have the same approach than when you're facing a Tampa Bay. It's the professional level. It's the highest level. They can beat you at any time. You have to have that approach.