BOSTON’S ROGER CLEMENS : All Hail the New Strikeout King

Roger Clemens remembers. He remembers sitting by the bullpen railing at the Houston Astrodome, an impressionable youngster, and listening for the explosion Nolan Ryan’s warmup pitches made when they hit the catcher’s mitt.

Steve Crawford remembers. He remembers sitting in the Boston Red Sox bullpen at Fenway Park April 29 and hearing a similar explosion.

On this occasion, Roger Clemens was delivering the pitches, and though Crawford was more than 400 feet away, he didn’t have to see to understand.

“Pa-boom. That was the sound,” a still awed Crawford said in recalling the night Clemens struck out 20 Seattle Mariners. “You could hear it all over New England.”

In 111 seasons and more than 147,000 games, no major league pitcher had struck out more than 19 major league hitters in the span of nine innings.

The record was shared by Steve Carlton, Tom Seaver and Clemens’ idol, Ryan. The kid known as Rocket had shot past the Express.

“I was amazed watching it,” Red Sox Manager John McNamara said in Oakland the other day. “Then I went home to watch the replay and became even more appreciative.

“He was outside, inside, throwing all of his pitches for strikes. He was in total command. It was as if he could do anything he wanted.

“I saw the perfect games that Catfish Hunter and Mike Witt pitched. I saw Seaver throw some outstanding games when he was pitching for me in Cincinnati, and I watched Ryan in ’78 when I was coaching with the Angels.

“But to me, this was the most awesome pitching performance I’ve ever seen.”

If Dwight Gooden is Dr. K, Clemens has earned his residency, but there is more to the 23-year-old right-hander than a fastball that is clocked consistently between 92 and 97 m.p.h.

Clemens is said to throw an equally devastating curve, slider and changeup. Or as Bill Fisher, the Boston pitching coach, put it:

“He’s not a one-pitch pitcher, he’s a four-pitch pitcher.”

Aside from Gooden, Clemens may have better control than any young power pitcher ever.

“Mercy,” Oakland Manager Jackie Moore pleaded after Clemens pitched twice against the A’s in the wake of his record performance against Seattle, striking out 21 more and walking only 2 in 16 innings.

Said Moore: “You gear up to hit what looks like a good strike, then boom, it’s 90 miles per hour out of the strike zone.

“But he’s not just some kid who rears back, throws the ball by you, then gives you the chance to catch up to him in the late innings.

“He knows how to pitch, moves the ball around, keeps you off balance and never walks anyone.”

Clemens threw 97 strikes and 41 balls in his walkless performance against Seattle.

He will pitch against the Angels Wednesday night at Anaheim Stadium having walked only 12 in the 49 innings of 6 starts, striking out a major league leading 60 on the way to a 5-0 record and a 1.99 earned-run average.

In the 25 innings of his last three starts, Clemens has walked only two while tying Ryan’s American League record of 41 strikeouts in three consecutive nine-inning games. He has pitched 281 major league innings, striking out 260 and walking 88, or fewer than three every nine innings.

“He’s probably the best full-count pitcher in baseball,” pitching coach Fisher said, meaning that Clemens is capable of throwing a strike with any of his pitches at any time.

Said catcher Rich Gedman: “He’s an artist, the way he moves the ball around. He works hitters the way a pitcher with twice his experience would.”

Added McNamara: “Ryan battled his control, and so did (Sandy) Koufax, at least in the beginning. I wasn’t in the National League when Seaver came up, but everyone agrees he was a master from the start. If you’re comparing the exceptional arms, I think Clemens is probably closest to Seaver.”

Said Clemens: “I wouldn’t even know how to teach control other than with mechanics, and my mechanics have always been there. Most power pitchers walk four or five guys a game. I can’t explain why I don’t except that mechanics have never been a problem for me.”

The problem has been his health.

Clemens was first summoned by the Red Sox in May, 1984, less than a year after helping pitch Texas to the College World Series championship.

He went 9-4 in 21 appearances, struck out 126 batters in 133 innings, generated instant comparisons to Gooden, then strained a muscle in his right forearm and was sidelined for the rest of the year.

“That was a front-office decision,” Clemens said. “I could have pitched.”

Last year, 4-2 in May, Clemens became aware of discomfort in his right shoulder. He continued to pitch, attempting to get by on his breaking stuff, then finally gave in while warming up for a start July 7 in Anaheim. He had won 7 of 12 decisions despite a fragmenting of the cartilage that protects the rotator cuff.

The condition was repaired by Dr. James Andrews of the Hughston Clinic in Columbus, Ga. The 6-foot 4-inch, 215-pound Clemens, considered a workaholic by the Red Sox, began therapy the day before the Aug. 30 operation and was doing weight work the day after it. But there was still a certain apprehension and frustration, a temptation to say, “Why me?”

“I was living my dream,” Clemens said. “Then I was hurting too much to continue. I didn’t want to be a has-been at 22. I don’t know that I could have handled that.

“Then once I had the operation, I just set my mind to what I had to do. I didn’t want to go to camp and be behind anyone.”

It was not until his third start of the regular season, however, that Clemens decided he was ready to “air it out.”

He was working against the Detroit Tigers when he struck out 10 in 6 innings, convincing himself that he was capable of throwing “even better than I did before.”

Born in Dayton, Ohio, and brought up in Houston, the baby-faced Clemens is part drawl and totally “down home.” He was a Little League phenom who sharpened his mechanics playing with older kids and spent a considerable chunk of every day practicing his delivery in front of a mirror.

He also played football and basketball in high school, but Clemens was determined to pitch.

“I liked the idea of controlling the game,” he said. “I liked the idea of being either hero or dog.”

The Minnesota Twins drafted Clemens as a high school senior in the 22nd round, but he was 17 and not yet ready for a pro test. He received a scholarship to San Jacinto Junior College and was subsequently drafted by the New York Mets.

The Mets said they were unimpressed when Clemens threw for scout Bob Gibson and ultimately withdrew a $40,000 bonus offer. Clemens said the decision was his and that there were a number of factors leading him to chose a Texas scholarship over the Mets’ invitation.

In any case, the Mets failed to sign Clemens after having signed Gooden the previous June, and Clemens went on to All-American honors at Texas, where he struck out 155 batters and walked only 22 in 156 innings for the 1983 NCAA champions. Clemens won the decisive game of the College World Series, striking out the final six Alabama batters.

The Red Sox had already made Clemens their No. 1 pick in the June draft, though it remains a mystery as to how 18 players were selected ahead of him.

If he lacked heart, as some scouts claimed, apparently forgetting that Clemens might have simply worn thin by often starting and relieving in consecutive games, he disproved it in the College World Series--and continued to as a pro.

He showed heart by winning seven games with an injured shoulder, by his dominating comeback from the August surgery and by his two strong starts against Oakland amid the pressure stemming from his 20 strikeouts against Seattle.

In fact, Clemens said his 4-1, 3-hit, 10-strikeout victory over the A’s five days later was almost as gratifying because he had gone in mentally fatigued.

The Red Sox have since tried to control the media demands. They will hold press conferences for Clemens in the larger media centers, hoping that the one shot satisfies all. The first of them was conducted Monday night in Anaheim.

Clemens, meanwhile, was relaxed and cordial during a one-on-one interview with a Los Angeles reporter Saturday in Oakland.

He said that nothing has changed nor will it, that he can’t take success for granted. He said that in some ways he welcomes the media pressure.

“It’s really no more pressure than I put on myself,” Clemens said. “I’ve always been hard on myself. I’ve always been a disciplined worker. I’ve always felt that if I ever became satisfied, I’d be a loser. I’ve always wanted to have it all on the line, to savor the moment. If I start to feel pressure, I go out and run to the point where I’m so physically and mentally tired that I fall into bed and can’t think of anything else.”

Said pitcher Al Nipper, Clemens’ closest friend on the Red Sox: “Maybe some guys who suddenly get media attention tend to run from it because they’re basically afraid of success. Roger is a different breed. He wants the ball. He wants the challenge. His work habits are so good they carry over to the field.”

Most see two Roger Clemenses, even though A’s Manager Moore has seen only one.

“Does he ever change expression out there?” Moore wondered, then added: “I guess when you pitch like that you don’t have to.”

Said pitching coach Fisher: “Around people, Roger tends to be shy, sensitive, modest. He doesn’t drink or smoke. He’s the type you’d want your daughter to marry (except that he already is married).

“Then in a game situation he’s cocky, tough. He holds the line mentally. He doesn’t crack. He knows what he’s doing out there and he wants the hitter to know that he knows.”

Said Clemens: “Off the field I’d say I’m pretty normal, but on the day that I’m pitching you wouldn’t know me. I mean, a pitcher has got to believe he’s in his own world. He has to be assertive, self-confident, a little cocky. I’m only arrogant on the day I pitch.”

And on those days, Clemens was asked, is he thinking about Nolan Ryan, who sent him a congratulatory telegram after his 20 Ks?

“I’ve always loved the feel of a strikeout and always admired hard throwers,” he said. “I remember the sound Ryan’s fastball made when it hit the glove. But the thing that stayed with me as well is how he would concentrate on using his legs to drive the ball across the plate and how he would try to use his breaking ball to set up a hitter.

“Guys like Ryan and Gooden, when they’ve got their breaking balls working, it’s lights out. I’m sure they feel in control of a game, just like I do when I’m getting them over. I’m tough to beat then.

“The problem at this level is that when you try to punch guys out it isn’t going to happen. It’s when you get caught up thinking about strikeouts that you get hurt.”

Clemens added, however, that he is confident that he can reach back and get the strikeout if the situation demands it. Otherwise, he said, smiling, he hopes that his reputation plays tricks on the hitter, prompting him to choke up and cut down on his swing, becoming something he’s not.

As for Clemens, there seems to be no question as to what he’s become--the ace and more of a surprisingly good pitching staff, the new backbone of a team that came to Anaheim leading the East.

“He’s to us what Dwight Gooden is to the Mets,” Fisher said. “He gives us a 90% chance of winning every time he goes out there. He’s a franchise pitcher who makes us an automatic contender.”

Said McNamara, asked if Clemens created the same excitement that Ryan does and Koufax did: “Absolutely. He has the capability to throw a no-hitter every time he pitches.”

A no-hitter would be nice, Clemens said, but for now he’s glad to have done something no one had ever done, of having done it at a comparatively young age against a lineup devoid of a pitcher attempting to hit.

“It was one of those nights when everything fell into place,” Clemens said, “If I get into position to do it again, I hope I can. If I can have that kind of soreness after every game, I’ll take it.

“I do feel that I’m still improving, and that my breaking pitches will continue to get better.”

In which case, it’s lights out.