Clemens Has Dibs on the Cy

But for a few telephone calls from an old pal, a big league ballpark 15 minutes from his compound in Memorial, Texas, and the go-ahead from his brood of Ks, the best pitcher in the National League might have spent the last baseball season on an overheated John Deere.

Instead, Roger Clemens, at 42, continued stocking future generations of Clemenses with Cy Young Awards, on Tuesday winning a record seventh, and his first in the NL, for his hometown Houston Astros.

A year after retiring, 9 1/2 months after reconsidering, Clemens received 23 of 32 first-place votes from the Baseball Writers’ Assn. of America, and so finished well ahead of Arizona’s Randy Johnson, the 41-year-old left-hander who was bidding for his sixth Cy Young, and teammate Roy Oswalt, the NL’s only 20-game winner. San Francisco right-hander Jason Schmidt was fourth. Dodger closer Eric Gagne, last year’s winner, was seventh.

Again considering retirement despite an 18-4 record and a 2.98 earned-run average, Clemens received the news in Japan, where he is pitching for a major league All-Star team.

He dedicated previous Cy Young Awards to his four sons -- whose names each begin with the letter “K,” homage to what has grown to 4,317 strikeouts, second to Nolan Ryan, his boyhood idol.

He curled the final year -- or years -- of his career around their chaotic schedules, traveling with the Astros only when necessary, working out in his personal gym when apart from the team, meanwhile rousting his boys in time for school and handing them lunch bags on their way out the door.

Clemens again will heed those paternal duties, along with the well-being of his mother, Bess, who suffers from emphysema.

“I’ll have to wait and see,” he said of pitching another season. “Obviously, committing to play again and to get my body ready to be a power pitcher ... that entails a lot. That entails a lot of time on a back field down in Florida and at my training facility at home in Houston.”

Like all candidates, Clemens would be Hall of Fame eligible five years after he retires for good, and he has already considered his audience in Cooperstown, N.Y.

“I don’t want to speak to two empty chairs,” he said. “That continues to weigh on my mind.”

That Clemens was around for the Astros at all took some doing. With persuasion from Andy Pettitte, a friend and former teammate with the New York Yankees, then a recent signee with the Astros and a fellow client of baseball agents Randy and Alan Hendricks, Clemens came out of a 78-day retirement with his signature hard fastballs and splitters.

On Christmas morning, with Clemens still pondering his decision, sons Koby and Kory presented their father with a gift-wrapped box. Inside, a new Astro cap.

“I knew,” Clemens said, “that was a little hint to start maybe jogging and lifting a bit.”

He won his first nine starts for the Astros, and his last six, and led them to their first postseason series victory, in five games against the Atlanta Braves in the division series. The Astros then lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in the seventh game of the league championship series.

“It was a very nice year,” Clemens said.

He pushed his career record to 328-164, inched to within 1,397 strikeouts of Ryan and, ultimately, postponed his Hall of Fame induction by a year.

Clemens’ previous Cy Young Awards came in 1986, 1987 and 1991 with the Boston Red Sox, 1997 and 1998 with the Toronto Blue Jays and 2001 with the Yankees.

On the eve of the announcement, Oswalt cast his support for Clemens.

“He’s the best candidate for it, as far as numbers-wise and what he’s done to come over here in a different league and what he did this year,” Oswalt told the Houston Chronicle. “There should be no other person getting it.”

Between Clemens’ playoff starts, Astro Manager Phil Garner spoke of Clemens’ value to a team that rallied late for its wild-card berth.

“There were a few of those [late-season] ballgames that he simply willed to win, it appeared to me,” he said. “He was just going to do it.... The Rocket has been fantastic.”

While Clemens has two World Series rings, earned in five well-spent seasons with the Yankees, the Astros were eliminated a victory from the World Series, possibly providing his motivation to return. The ERA was his lowest in six years and he pitched 214 1/3 innings, all suggesting there’s plenty of fuel left in the Rocket’s right arm.

“I’m not going to look in the rear-view mirror,” Clemens said during the league championship series. “If and when this is all done, I’ll have a big smile on my face.”

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Cy-clical Man

First-, second- and third-place votes and total points on a 5-3-1 basis:

*--* Player, team 1st 2nd 3rd T Clemens, Houston 23 8 1 140 Johnson, Arizona 8 18 3 97 Oswalt, Houston 1 3 5 19 Schmidt, San Fran. 0 1 10 13 Zambrano, Chicago 0 1 5 8 Pavano, Florida 0 1 3 6 Gagne, Dodgers 0 0 3 3 Lidge, Houston 0 0 1 1 Sheets, Milwaukee 0 0 1 1

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Magnificent 7

Roger Clemens’ statistics for his record seven Cy Young Award-winning seasons:

*--* Year Team W-L IP ERA SO 1986 Boston 24-4 254.0 2.48 238 1987 Boston 20-9 281.2 2.97 256 1991 Boston 18-10 271.1 2.62 241 1997 Toronto 21-7 264.0 2.05 292 1998 Toronto 20-6 234.2 2.65 271 2001 N.Y. Yankees 20-3 220.1 3.51 213 2004 Houston 18-4 214.1 2.98 218

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