A Minor Start for Major Star

Roger Clemens stood before the home dugout Tuesday night, having answered a curtain call after three innings and 62 serviceable pitches.

He tipped his cap to the opposing dugout, inquired into the health of a designated hitter he bruised above the right elbow with a fastball, waved to his wife and sisters in Suite 15, and bumped knuckles with his game-long teammates.

He smiled and clenched his fist.

Before long, he was through the door in the right-field fence, off to the next minor-league town. The schedule says double-A Corpus Christi on Sunday, triple-A Round Rock five days later, the mound at Minute Maid Park after that.

Clemens, going on 44, restarted his career at a tidy South Atlantic League ball field named Applebee’s Park, and spent those three innings within muttering range of his son, Koby, a 19-year-old third baseman for the Class-A Lexington Legends. In fact, before he threw his first pitch, he turned and accepted the baseball from Koby, who tenderly dropped it into his glove.

“Let’s get going,” Koby told him, and Roger smiled back.

Dear old dad, of course, can’t say goodbye. Koby’s taken to calling him “Bernie Mac,” whose character in the movie “Mr. 3000” comes back to the game -- fat and slow -- at age 47. Astros senior vice president Jay Lucas’ pre-start gift to Clemens was a copy of the movie, “Major League: Back to the Minors,” which cracked him up.

Maybe it’s the game, and how it just won’t let him go and then keeps paying him -- a prorated $22 million this time -- to stay.

Clemens, who made two starts in the World Baseball Classic but otherwise hadn’t done this since Game 1 of the last World Series, had enough in his arm to bring a fastball or two at 93 mph. He hung a splitter that was hit for a long first-inning home run, but otherwise was reasonably sharp. Forty of his 62 pitches were for strikes. He did not walk a batter, though Marshall Szabo of Alpharetta, Ga. and his throbbing elbow would attest to a certain amount of imprecision.

“That’s one step down, two to go,” Clemens said. He added later, “My arm is great.”

Before the game, the Lake County Captains, Clemens’ foils for the evening, sat beneath a still-hot sun, pondering the once-in-a-career at-bats ahead of them. When Clemens announced he would pitch again, beginning here on this date, the Captains had rushed to their schedules and found their serendipitous hacks.

“No fear, just pure excitement,” said Nick Petrucci, the Captains third baseman who played at Alemany High in the San Fernando Valley and College of the Canyons. “It’ll be something that never happens again.”

The scouting report?

“He’s the best right-handed pitcher ever, arguably,” Petrucci said. “That’s enough of a scouting report for me. Look to hit early in the count. Don’t wait to see the splitter.”

A few minutes later, in front of an announced crowd of more than 9,000, the Legends players were introduced one by one, and they trotted to the field with Little Leaguers dressed in red uniforms on their heels.

Then, “And the pitcher, the right-hander, 22 ...”

Clemens shook his glove, a hello to the people here and the biggest game ever played at the little park constructed to resemble a horse racing grandstand.

He was tailed by a diminutive No. 44. They stood on the mound, together with three mascots, loosely identified as Big Baseball Head Guy, Big Legends Head Guy and Big Legends Head Lady, during the national anthem.

Clemens, ever decorous, stood with his cap over his heart, even as Big Baseball Head Guy’s tongue lolled from a wild grin beside him.

It seemed only a slight discomfiture. After all, Clemens was spared the tractor safety demonstration in front of the ballpark and activities associated with Kentucky Proud Dairy Night, which included two men in Clemens jerseys milking a fiberglass cow behind home plate.

When the ceremonies were done, Clemens signed an autograph for his assigned Little Leaguer, handed him the baseball and patted him on the rear, nudging him in the direction of the first-base dugout.

Hours before, the Astros had put Roy Oswalt on the disabled list. They would get a little help in the National League Central from the injury to the Cardinals’ Albert Pujols, but they had lost five in a row and 11 of 13 as Clemens took the ball. In a postgame news conference, he asked the score of Tuesday night’s game against the Cubs.

“I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t think I could help,” he said. “If my body stays healthy, I think I can help.”

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By the numbers

Roger Clemens’ three innings of work for the Class-A Lexington Legends on Tuesday:

*--* 13 BATTERS FACED 62 NUMBER OF PITCHES 40 STRIKES 22 BALLS 6 STRIKEOUTS 0 WALKS 1 EARNED RUNS 3 HITS ALLOWED 1 HOME RUN ALLOWED

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