The Rocket That Fell to Earth: Roger Clemens and the Rage for Baseball Immortality Kindle Edition

Even before Sports Illustrated writer Jeff Pearlman tried to bury the reputation of baseball pitcher Roger Clemens forever with his rather silly tome, The Rocket That Fell to Earth, the alleged case against Clemens for taking anabolic steroids and HGH was so weak that no assistant district attorney wanting to keep his job would ever have brought the case to trial.Accuser Brian McNamee, one of Clemens's 40 or so strength coaches throughout his 24 year career, gave numerous, and conflicting accounts, of how he got paid and where the performance enhancing drugs originated from, could not identify the kind of anabolic steroids that he claimed to have saved from Clemens for nearly a decade. McNamee never told anybody, including his wife, that he had injected Clemens or saved samples from injecting Clemens. Clemens's teammate Andy Pettitte admitted from his first congressional deposition that he had only the vaguest recollection that Clemens once told him that he used HGH, was not sure, and would never be sure, including during his testimony at Clemens's second trial in 2011. A federal jury, a very pro-prosecution one in fact, acquitted Clemens of perjury based on the underlying drug allegations in less than two hours.Only politics explains the actual prosecution of Clemens for perjury, or Barry Bonds for that matter. Congress, George Mitchell, Major League Baseball, the U.S. Justice Department, and baseball fans who had watched Roger Clemens deck their favorite hitter wanted his pound of flesh. There was no real law and order policy reason to prosecute Bonds for perjury either, who had admitted to taking steroids, if inadvertently.Pearlman, like other purported chroniclers of the Clemens saga, starts out with the arrogant supposition that Clemens is guilty and therefore spends the book madly in search of explanations of why the pitcher with a reputation for plunking batters was so evil. After all, sportswriters, like many Americans, are convinced they know far more about the law in general, and any specific case in particular, than any mere lawyer, judge, or jury member who spends months on end listening to testimony.Pearlman's melodramatic opening, which no doubt sold the manuscript to a publisher, and is by the far the best writing in the book, describes an eerie appearance by Clemens's older brother, a cocaine addict. The point of this opening is to establish the thesis that his brother's addiction to cocaine apparently led Clemens to see how the drug ruined his brother's life and therefore somehow followed suit by gravitating to performance enhancing drugs. It is difficult to guess whether Pearlman is trying to establish a genetic theory, that like family members are given to addictions of some kind. Or suggest the dubious psychological theory that Clemens was led to take illegal drugs, because, being fascinated by his brother's fall from grace, Clemens wanted to destroy his life too.Even the most avid Red Sox fans will have a hard time identifying many of the obscure substitutes who played for the franchise during Clemens's tenure in the 80s and 90s and talked with Pearlman about their various complaints about the star pitcher. The only Red Sox player of note from the era to talk to him was pitcher Bruce Hurst. These petty complaints are in contrast to Clemens's solid reputation in Boston, Toronto, New York, and Houston as a loyal and solid teammate.In fact, it must be admitted that Pearlman does an excellent job in running down the several hundred people in Clemens's past who have a bone to pick with him, mostly out of jealousy or because they have not heard from Clemens since he moved on from various points in his life. In doing so, Pearlman repeats urban legends about Clemens, and there are a lot of them out there because of a guy whose confidence in his greatness was expressed from an early age. One of the most interesting is Pearlman's claim that Clemens negotiated a baseball scholarship to the University of Texas by demanding that Coach Cliff Gustafson pitch him in two televised openers against the University of Miami. It was a strange claim to make, considering the old coach's reputation as a marine drill sergeant in presiding over the second most wins in NCAA baseball history.Contacted by phone in 2011, Gustafson scoffed at Pearlman's story. "Roger did what he was told," he growled.Not that it is the point of his book, and so Pearlman downplays it, but he does do an excellent job in describing Clemens's conversion from a ball control pitcher to more of a power pitcher in his freshman year at San Jacinto College. A pitcher with no more than a fastball in the mid 80s miles per hour, and therefore with a limited major league future, Clemens was discovered to have a defect in his pitching motion that prevented him from completing a pitch correctly. When the defect was corrected his fastball improved dramatically, nearly 10 miles per hour, an extraordinary increase in speed.Yet if Pearlman had done more home work on Clemens's pitching techniques, and less on unproven allegations of crimes, he would have learned of a similar "miracle" two years later at the University of Texas. By all accounts, Clemens had a terrible curve ball. Indeed Coach Gustafson and catcher Jeff Hearron joked about it often. Hearron called it a "slurve." Gustafson called it "an unintended changeup."Several days before spring break, in March 1983, and shortly before young Barry Bonds and Arizona State arrived in Austin for a weekend series, pitching coach Cal Thomas discovered that Clemens gripped his curve ball incorrectly. The rest, as they say, is history. Contrary to popular belief, therefore, Clemens began his major league career as a control pitcher, not a fast ball pitcher, and he arrived with an unhittable curve as well. If that had been understood, or explained by Pearlman, there would have been less likelihood that baseball fans would have believed the ensuing steroids allegations or that the speed of his fastball made an unlikely increase in the second half of his career. Indeed Gustafson said Clemens fastball diminished a little throughout his career, but not much.Probably the most important contribution that Pearlman makes in this book is explaining the feud between Clemens and the Boston baseball writers that erupted from almost the beginning of his time in Fenway Park. It was an immediate culture clash. Clemens represented everything northeasterners hate about Texans, the perceived boastfulness, the proud chauvinism about Texas. Even as Clemens became the best Red Sox pitcher since Cy Young in the early years of the 20th century, the writers mocked him as a hayseed in farmer's overalls, an illiterate who could not finish sentences. The tabloid Boston Herald published a regular column that printed Clemens's quotes unedited, holding him up to constant ridicule.Eventually Clemens reacted, sulked, refused to talk to the writers, banned them from the team bus, threw hamburger rolls at one writer, purposely bumped into a photographer on the field.Pearlman runs down every exaggeration Clemens ever made to a Red Sox beat writer, specializing in his exaggerations about playing other sports. Clemens did play football and basketball in high school. Most of these exaggerations, elevated to evidence that Clemens was capable of perjury regarding illegal drugs, were, as it turns out, from his single days when he was trying to pick up girls.[Hansen Alexander is an attorney and author. His most recent book, "An Introduction to the Laws of the United States in the 21rst Century," is an Amazon e-book exclusive.]

In "A Rocket That Fell To Earth", Jeff Pearlman has firmly established himself as his generation's Pat Jordan.Like many, I was first exposed to Jeff Pearlman through his scathing assessment of John Rocker in a Sports Illustrated article published after Rocker's emergence to the national media during the Atlanta Braves 1999 playoff run. During the 1999 playoffs, Rocker intentionally sought-out conflict with the New York media, and in the process, became a local hero in Atlanta. While I was never a John Rocker fan, I was very dismissive of Pearlman's tactics and sympathized with Rocker's portrayal by Pearlman as a spoiled, obnoxious, bigoted, southern, redneck. I was a 19 year-old teenager that didn't really care that John Rocker was exposed for what he was, but more annoyed that the article didn't deal with John Rocker the baseball player.As time progressed, and I realized that athletes should be held accountable for their actions outside of the playing field, I was drawn to the writing of Pat Jordan through a piece he submitted on Jose Canseco on the sports blog Deadspin. I came to appreciate a writing-style that didn't make excuses for athletes and didn't only publish quotes the athlete's PR team permitted.I was looking forward to reading Pearlman's unauthorized biography of Roger Clemens as soon as I heard about it. Pearlman, in an entertaining and engaging manner, details Roger Clemens' rise from a pudgy, third-starter on his high-school team to a seven-time Cy Young award winner. Pearlman leaves no doubt that Roger Clemens was a dominant pitcher before the use of performing enhancing drugs but that the use of these drugs is what created the Roger Clemens' aurora that was extinguished once the Mitchell Report was delivered in December of 2007.In my opinion, not only has Pearlman authored an expose that gives more credibility to the Mitchell Report and the testimony of Brian McNamee; he has also produced a piece of work that examines a critical reason why the Roger Clemens myth to continued to perpetuate during the last years of Clemens' career. Pearlman points out that journalists, who are given extraordinary access to these athletes, turned a blind-eye to the performance enhancing problem and took turns gushing over Clemens' ability to continue to compete at the highest level that defied sports medicine with no real investigation into why this was happening.For this reason, I am thankful of the work of Jeff Pearlman and hope that a generation of writers will be inspired to ask questions and not just become a mouth-piece for the marketing departments of teams and the players so that we will never have to endure another painful scandal that baseball fans, like myself, have had to go through over the last two to three years.

Ok, I will admit that right off the cuff I love to read biography tabloid books. The title on this one and watching all of the steroid scandal and media coverage on Roger Clemens (as he perjured himself) has kept me glued to the topic. Regardless, the man lied and he should just be forthright and come clean.The book really tells the true character of Roger Clemens -- his arrogance. I am not saying he was not a good person and did not go charitable giving ... but I think he did it for his own purposes. The fact that he cannot tell the truth about his steroid use just shows what kind of person you are dealing with. The book really brings about some of the color in his character. I have always been intrigued by the Clemens intimidation factor on the mound. His intimidation and precision on the mound was fueled by steroids.The book goes into the story of a chubby boy born in Ohio to a broken home who remakes himself into a "Texan" with more stability. Most people think of Clemens as a Texan ... not so. Just another facade that "The Rocket" puts on. Roger dreamt of going to the majors and was able to fulfill that dream (that is admirable). However, at what cost? This book delves into the life of a baseball star "The Rocket" who indeed is very human.How much more admirable would he be if he came forward and told the truth. I don't think he has the truth in him or believes the truth. Read the book, it's a fast read and entertaining. A great baseball tabloid book up there with  Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big . Incidentally, Conseco held Roger's hand through the beginning of the juicing process.5 stars for entertainment value.

GOOD BOOK

It was well written, with a lot of untold stories, and corrections of some rumors or previously told stories. But it seems the author thinks Clemens was lucky all the way. The Rocket may have cheated at one part of is career, but he still was an excellent, way above average pitcher even before the steroids-era began. The steroids ruined the sport for a decade or two, but we need to be honest, Clemens earned is MVP and Cy Young with the Red Sox...after that, I think baseball should just erase everything that happenend in the steroids-era and put a big sign at the Hall of fame: Baseball was interrupted during 2 decades...because, unlike the author may seems to think, Clemens was not the only one on "juice", 2 trainers came out and gave 160 players' name, imagine if 30 trainers would come and say what they know. I don't know the guy personnaly, but I think the author gave a more negative opinion of the reality.

Preferred this author's other books about the New York Mets (superb) and the Dallas Cowboys (very good). The "Rocket's" early life and career were described interestingly, but didn't get much insight into the "why" of what happened in his later career, happened. Still, like this author's style of writing, but I'd recommend "The Bad Guys Won" instead.

Very nice insight into the Rocket's life and back story. There's more to what we all hear in the news.

Nice to read the behind the scenes stuff.