Steve Silverman

When it comes to grabbing every dollar he can possibly get his hands on, you can’t fault Roger Clemens.

Never in the history of baseball has any player so defined the word of carpetbagger. He might have been able to keep his news away from the New York press, but Clemens isn’t fooling everyone.

He’s in it for the money.

Clemens talked with the Yankees, Red Sox and his hometown Astros. All three wanted him, but the Yankees blew away the field with an offer of $28 million prorated over the final four months of the season. The Yankees will pay him $4.5 million per month from June 1 through the end of the season. It will cost King George even more when the luxury tax is considered (about $1.8 million more per month). Anyway you slice it, it will cost the Yankees more than $1 million per start.

But this is not about Steinbrenner’s money. Doesn’t Clemens have any dignity? This is the third straight year he has decided to come into the middle of the season, even though everyone else has been working since February.

Clemens is perhaps the greatest right-handed pitcher in the past 70 years. He comes back to the Yankees as a 44-year-old power pitcher (he’ll turn 45 in August) with the mental makeup and demeanor to remain a commanding presence.

OK, he looks the part. But just how good is Clemens at this point? The Yankees think that signing Clemens will get them back in the race, but the numbers don’t guarantee anything.

Clemens is looked as something of a horse when he gets to the mound. Listed at 6-4 and 220 — the guess here is somewhere around 235 — Clemens has thrown 118 complete games 47 shutouts in his 23 years in the major leagues. Exactly two of those complete games have come in the past six years, and he’s had one shutout in the last seven years.

Clemens is no longer pitching to his prior standards. During the prime of his career, he wanted the ball, and he didn’t want to come out of the game. Now, Clemens is more than happy to retire to the bench after six innings. He had 19 starts a year ago and went seven innings in only five of those starts.

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That was in the National League. Instead of facing powder puff lineups, he’s going back to face the best that baseball has to offer. The once-proud National League has been overwhelmed in its competition with the AL, getting beaten badly in all measurable categories. This argument is self-evident, but here are some telling numbers.

• The American League has won the annual interleague competition three straight years, including a whopping 154-98 margin in 2006. The Red Sox (16-2), Twins (16-2), Tigers (15-3), White Sox (14-4) and Mariners (14-4) had shockingly strong won-loss records against their senior circuit rivals.
• The All-Star game, which was squarely in the possession of the National League from 1963-1982 when it won 19-of-20, now belongs to the American League. The American League has not lost since 1996, going 9-0-1 in that span with the infamous 7-7 tie in the 2002 game in Milwaukee serving as the only blemish. You may remember that Clemens started the 2004 All-Star game for the National League and gave up six runs — including two home runs — in the first inning as the AL secured an easy 9-4 win.
• The National League expected a bloodbath when the Tigers met the Cardinals in last year’s World Series. St. Louis managed a 4-1 upset, but last year’s Cardinals team was largely viewed as the flukiest of champions. They stumbled down the stretch and barely outlasted Clemens’s Astros for the division title before catching fire in the postseason. The Cardinals were 83-78 (.516) during the regular season and were 5-10 against American League teams in interleague competition. Even with the Tigers’ loss last year, the American League representative has won 10 of the last 15 World Series titles.

Now Clemens comes back to the league he apparently said goodbye to following the 2003 World Series. It could get ugly.