It Wasn't Rocket Science

By Bill Plaschke

May 27, 2003 12 AM PT

NEW YORK —

The Bronx ghosts wept again Monday, long and hard and cold, drying their eyes in time to watch another Yankee fall.

Memorial Day here included a military band, moments of silence and a subdued farewell to pinstriped magic, the remaining bits blowing in gusts around a mound beneath a cursing Roger Clemens.

He attempted to brighten bewildered Yankee Stadium with a historic 300th victory against the historic rivals from Boston.

It rained for hours.

He showed up with a glove affixed with a white emblem containing the number “300” in bold script, an incredible act of presumption that usually goes unchallenged inside these hallowed walls of presumption.

The glove was ejected before the first pitch.

He brought dozens of family members, some of whom hung banners for every strikeout, others who hung a sheet reading, “Let’s Go Dad.”

By the seventh inning, they were alone and shivering.

He brought a toughness that some say could make him remembered as the greatest pitcher ever, those wins and strikeouts in an era of biceps and long balls.

It was his worst performance in more than a year, eight runs in less than six innings, eight of the Red Sox’s 10 hits with two strikes.

It didn’t work, any of it, from start to finish, with Clemens shouting and Joe Torre sighing and the Yankees losing, 8-4, in front of an announced 55,093, many apparently hidden under parkas or boos.

“We’ve had a lot of things go right here in our seven or eight years,” Yankee Manager Torre said. “This is the worst ... well, it’s not the worst, but....”

He was right the first time. Since Torre came to work here in 1996, fashioning a dynasty that restored past glories, the Yankees have never been so lacking in focus and future.

They have lost 12 of their last 13 games at home, the worst stretch in this stadium’s 81 years.

They have won only nine of their last 27 games overall, their early-season championship illusions dulled by aging pitchers and a distracted lineup that contains only three starters from those brilliant teams of Torre past.

And now, their legendary pitcher is 0-1 in games that will provide him with the key to the Hall of Fame.

“I’ll get there eventually,” Clemens said before pausing. “I hope.”

Even those craziest of doubts are creeping in from all sides here, like the cold wind that blew gusts of dirt on Clemens’ uniform, like the mud that stuck to his spikes, all sullying what was supposed to be a perfect day.

“It’s romantic,” Torre said of Clemens’ quest to win this particular game on this particular afternoon. “It seems like the right thing to do. We really wanted him to get it here.”

The romance ended before the first pitch, a storybook torn at the first glossy page, when the Red Sox noticed something on Clemens’ glove.

“All we know is that it was big and round and looked like a baseball,” Red Sox catcher Doug Mirabelli said.

A complaint from Manager Grady Little sent home-plate umpire Bill Miller to the mound where he delicately poked at Clemens’ glove like a kid touching a statue. The glove was immediately sent to the showers, but not before television cameras zoomed in on the number 300 imprinted on the side.

What, the number 299 was already taken?

“It’s a Major League Baseball thing,” said Clemens, explaining that the patch was designed and affixed by the league office. “Whatever they want me to do, I’ll do.”

You mean, baseball officials would be so lacking in foresight that they would actually ask one of their players to wear an emblem commemorating an achievement he has not yet reached, on a glove in plain sight of opposing hitters, in a patch the shape of a baseball?

Yeah, sounds about right.

“Beforehand, I told Mel [Stottlemyre] that if it was going to be a problem, I left another glove on my chair. So we just got that glove,” Clemens said.

A problem, no. An omen, yes.

Fifty-two degrees at game time and Clemens is the only guy on the Yankees not wearing long sleeves, but you wonder if his redness was from blushing rather than the cold.

“He had a lot on his plate today,” Torre said.

That plate began getting cleaned in the second inning, after he gave up a run on one line drive, one bloop and one broken-bat single.

He was still in command, and needed only to retire .237-hitting Mirabelli to escape the inning.

The count was 1-and-2. The roaring crowd rose to its feet. And Clemens threw it so far outside, Jorge Posada lunged to catch it.

He was trying too hard, with stuff he didn’t have. It took him six more pitches -- including four fouls balls -- to retire Babe Mirabelli and end the inning.

The out was as good as a hit. His former team, wearing the cap he said he will not wear in the Hall of Fame, had him. And everyone knew it.

“We know he’s going to win his 300th game,” Kevin Millar said. “But we didn’t want it to be against us.”

In the third inning, Clemens walked Trot Nixon after loading the bases with an intentional walk, and how often has that happened to him in the last 20 years?

In the fourth inning, he allowed a run to score on an 0-and-2 wild pitch to Nomar Garciaparra, and when is the last time that happened?

“You get beat, but those were runs I felt I gave them,” Clemens said.

By the time he faced his final batter, the crowd knew the end was near, so instead of cheering for Clemens, they paused to jeer the Red Sox in the only chant that made any sense at that point.

“Nineteen-eighteen,” they chanted. “Nineteen-eighteen.”

Once upon a time around here, Torre’s Yankees relied on history. The type of history you felt, sensed, believed. The type that didn’t need to be put on a patch.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.

Still One to Go

New York Yankee pitcher Roger Clemens is one victory short of 300 for his career. The all-time victory leaders among major league pitchers:

1. Cy Young ...511

2. Walter Johnson ...417

3. Christy Mathewson ...373

3. Grover Cleveland Alexander ...373

5. Pud Galvin ...365

6. Warren Spahn ...363

7. Kid Nichols ...361

8. Tim Keefe ...342

9. Steve Carlton ...329