Wednesday July 14, 2004

ALICUBLOG CHARGES THE MOUND.As usual, the All-Star Game sucked -- not as much at the 2002 "fuck this, let's quit" All-Star Game, but at that one you at least got to watch the fans boo and throw things at millionaires. This year's was just tedious.

The bright note came early, though, with the shelling of the despicable Roger Clemens in the first inning. This will likely be the Rocket's last nationally-televised appearance (at least until he becomes Governor of Texas and starts running executions in prime-time, personally triggering each lethal injection by throwing a fastball at those clown-dunk-cage targets hooked up to a hypodermic), and it's nice to see him go out a goat.

As a Mets fan, of course, I already have more than one reason to dislike Clemens. I got to dislike him more when I saw him on the David Letterman show, joking about the rumors that Piazza is gay. It takes a special type of barbarism to almost kill a guy, then crack lame fag jokes about him. (Clemens also said on this occasion that he has two high-inside pitches, the second of which is thrown "so they don't think the first one's a mistake.")

I merely nodded when Clemens screwed the Yankees because, well, it was the Yankees. Still, it was piquant that "Pinstripe Pride," regarded by its acolytes of some sort of magical force, turned out to be no impediment at all to the Clemens self-actualization program; one could enjoy, in a mordant way, the image of Clemens accepting New York's delirious ovations and free cars and press panegyrics at the end of the 2003 season, with a little thought balloon drawn over his head, reading "Suckers."

I give the closing to, of all people, a New York Post reporter (but one working at that paper's relatively serious sports desk), Mike Vaccaro, who wrote brilliantly today:

Clemens, to the end, has believed he alone is entitled to invoke his will on everyone and everything around him. He has his own set of rules around the Astros, he is allowed to live his own life, be his own man, worry about the team when he feels like it. When Barry Bonds makes these demands, he is filleted from coast to coast as a me-first, ego-centric blowhard; Clemens' apologists present him as a caring family man.

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