Mike Celizic

Get over the notion that Roger Clemens deserved his eighth Cy Young Award on the basis that he had the lowest ERA in 10 years and is as old as the Rocky Mountains and equally as admired.

The Cy Young Award goes to the best pitcher, not the most popular, not the one with the best human-interest sidebar nor the one who stands to get the most endorsement deals for hanging up another plaque. And as much as I found what Houston Astros' Clemens did last season beyond belief, he wasn’t the National League’s best pitcher.

That person would be Chris Carpenter, the St. Louis Cardinals ace who blossomed after seven years of underachievement into a starter who went 21-5 with a 2.83 ERA, seven complete games and four shutouts.

And if it’s not Carpenter, it’s Dontrelle Willis of the Florida Marlins, the 2003 Rookie of the Year who rebounded this season after a sophomore slump to lead the NL in wins with 22.

But it’s not Clemens.

I’ll admit the arguments for Clemens are attractive, even if they’re not compelling. He rang up 1.87 ERA, which is the lowest since Greg Maddux fashioned a 1.63 ERA for the Atlanta Braves in 1995, when umpires were still giving him three or four inches outside the black on both sides of home plate. Clemens pitched 211.1 innings and had 185 strikeouts.

Forty-three-year-old guys don’t put up numbers like that. Heck, 23-year-olds don’t, either. And if the Cy were given to the best age-adjusted performance or the most impressive performance by a guy who uses a walker to get to the team bus, Clemens would be your man.

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But there’s a little problem with wins; Clemens had just 13 of them against eight defeats. His defenders will say quite accurately that the Rocket got less support from the Astros than Anna Nicole Smith would get from a Kleenex bra. They were shut out in seven of his starts, five of which ended in 1-0 scores, and handed him just 18 runs total in his first 11 starts.

If Clemens were still pitching for the New York Yankees, he would have won 20, but if a squirrel had longer ears and hind legs and a little powder-puff tail, it would be a rabbit. The game isn’t about ifs, it’s about numbers.