NOTES

Roger Clemens has avoided talking in depth with reporters during his tumultuous World Series but he opened up Wednesday on his Web site.

“This is ridiculous,” he wrote of the bat-throwing incident with Mike Piazza. “I’ve got family here in New York reading some of this garbage saying that I’m ‘unstable,’ I’m this and that, it’s just ridiculous.

“I’m out there competing and trying to win a ballgame. I’ve got no issues with Piazza, or his team, other than I want to beat them on the field.”

About why he didn’t apologize to Piazza for almost hitting him with a bat, Clemens wrote, “Number one, there’s no apology necessary, because I didn’t see him running down the base line, and there was no intent when I threw the bat. Number two, when I tried to call the guy the last time something happened, he couldn’t care less what I had to say because he didn’t accept the phone call!”

*

Before the Series, Yankee Jose Canseco announced that he was “the worst pinch-hitter in the world.”

In his pinch-hitting attempt in Wednesday’s Game 4 in the sixth inning, he did little to disprove it, striking out on five pitches with runners on first and second.

And then joking about it.

“We were all laughing because I hadn’t hit in a month,” said Canseco, who had not batted in 25 days. “[Teammates] were saying I was like the Tin Man in ‘The Wizard of Oz’--I needed someone to give me some oil.”