The Yankees' Roger Clemens probably will reach his career 300th victory
Sunday against the lowly Tigers, but he won't be the last to reach that
milestone, says columnist Ron Borges.




Clemens great, but Koufax greatest
Rocket won’t be last to reach 300 career victories

COMMENTARY


May 28 — More than 8,500 pitchers have started a game in the major
leagues. Only 20 have won 300 times. Soon Roger Clemens will become the 21st
which obviously makes him among the most elite practitioners of his job in
the history of the game. But will he be the last to win 300 and is he the
best to ever do it?






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THOSE QUESTIONS HAVE been much debated in the past few weeks as
Clemens has lumbered toward 300 at age 40. It is a mountain he will most
likely scale Sunday afternoon against the lowly Detroit Tigers after failing
in his first attempt at it against his long-time former employers, the Red
Sox, on a Memorial Day they will remember more fondly in Boston for his
defeat than they will in either New York or Houston, the adopted home of the
Clemens clan, for his effort on a day when he was not at his best.


Clemens seeks No. 300


• Borges: Clemens not greatest of all-time
• Clemens fails in bid for No. 300 as Yanks lose
• How many will follow Clemens to 300?
• Clemens recalls Boston
• More on Baseball






As things stand at the moment, Clemens is 6-3 this season and 299-154
lifetime, leaving him possessed of an almost identical winning percentage of
nearly .667 both this season and for his career (.661 to be exact). Those
are remarkable numbers made only more so by the fact he is on the cusp of
becoming only the third pitcher to strike out 4,000 batters and has seemed
to waver only slightly as he approaches the true twilight of his career (as
opposed to the twilight predicted for him when then-Red Sox general manager
Dan Duquette was trying to justify losing him to the Blue Jays in 1997 by
offering him what was reportedly $20 million less than Toronto was willing
to pay the then three-time Cy Young Award winner).
At the time Boston let him go, Clemens had most definitely struggled
the previous four seasons, although injuries and the owners’ lockout of 1995
had much to do with that. Clemens was 40-39 during that stretch and because
he went on to win three more Cy Youngs and had back-to-back 21- and 20-win
seasons in Toronto and another such year in New York, it is widely accepted
in Boston that he had become fat, out of shape and unwilling to pay the
price for greatness in his final years with the Red Sox because he was angry
with his bosses.



Who is the greatest pitcher since 1990?

Roger Clemens
David Cone
Tom Glavine
Orel Hershiser
Randy Johnson
Greg Maddux
Pedro Martinez
Curt Schilling
John Smoltz
Dave Stewart
Other


Vote to see results




Who is the greatest pitcher since 1990?
* 2335 responses
Roger Clemens
24%
David Cone
1%
Tom Glavine
2%
Orel Hershiser
2%
Randy Johnson
29%
Greg Maddux
20%
Pedro Martinez
15%
Curt Schilling
3%
John Smoltz
2%
Dave Stewart
1%
Other
3%

Survey results tallied every 60 seconds. Live Votes reflect respondents'
views and are not scientifically valid surveys.


Clemens was indeed angry with one of his bosses, Duquette, but he was
neither fat nor out of shape during that stretch, with the exception of when
the lockout ended unexpectedly in ’95. In his final season in Boston, 1996,
Clemens did win only 10 games, but he left with leads seven times that were
later blown by his bullpen. More importantly, that season Duquette felt was
surely Clemens’ twilight.
Clemens (10-13) finished first in the American League in strikeouts
with 257, second in fewest hits allowed per nine innings (with 8.01), was
fourth in shutouts and complete games and fifth in innings pitched with 243.
His ERA of 3.64, although far above his best years, was still seventh in the
league, and he was offering up an average of 125 pitches per start, which by
the standards of the day made him a workhorse.
Still, he was allowed to depart despite having won 192 games in
Boston and went on to become the best pitcher in the league during his two
seasons in Toronto, and one of the best after landing with the Yankees. What
is perhaps the most telling statistic to establish his greatness, however,
was one revealed Sunday by Allen Barra, a statistically minded writer with
the New York Times. In the midst of making his argument that Clemens is the
greatest starting pitcher in history, Barra pointed out that before coming
to the Yankees, Clemens pitched 15 seasons in Boston and Toronto and those
teams won barely 51 percent of their total games during those years. Yet
Clemens was 233-124 with those same teams, a winning percentage of .652.



As Barra points out, Clemens “was 140 percentage points better than
the teams he pitched for, the largest differential for any pitcher with more
than 100 victories” in history. Since coming to the far more talented
Yankees, Clemens is, predictably enough, 66-30, a winning percentage of
nearly .700. Winning at such a consistent rate for teams so consistently
mediocre says much about the greatness of Clemens, but does it make him
likely to be the last man to win 300 or the best of all-time?
I would argue no in both cases.
On the subject of 300 wins, Clemens is looked upon as the first to
approach that milestone in the era of the five-man rotation, a change that
certainly makes it unlikely anyone will again reach Warren Spahn’s 363
victories, and forget Cy Young’s or Walter Johnson’s numbers. Yet does the
expansion from a four-man rotation to five starting pitchers mean no one
else will come along and have the longevity, the good health and the
pitching skills to reach 300 again?
That seems unlikely. First off, Greg Maddux still might do it before
he retires. Second, if 21 players have reached that total, eventually
another will come along as well. No feat stands unchallenged forever despite
the inherent problems trying to do it with a significant annual decrease in
starts for the pitchers who will follow Clemens to major league pitching
mounds.
That being the way we see it from here, then what of Barra’s argument
that Clemens may well be the greatest starting pitcher of all-time despite
the fact that at the moment 20 other pitchers have won more games than he
has?
Statistically, Barra made a strong case for Clemens, comparing him
favorably with Lefty Grove, whom he feels you can make an equally strong
argument for as the best starting pitcher in history. Statistics, however,
do not always tell the story, even though baseball is a sport that has built
much of its history on numbers.
There is no comparison between the numbers posted by Clemens and
Sandy Koufax, but there is one thing that should convince you that Koufax
was the greatest starting pitcher in history, and that is your eyes. If you
ever watched Koufax pitch for the Dodgers in his salad days during the
mid-1960s, you have no doubt who was the greatest starting pitcher of
all-time.
After going 36-40 in his first six seasons with the Dodgers, Koufax
suddenly discovered how to pitch in 1961 after backup catcher Norm Sherry
made a simple suggestion. He told him not to throw so hard. From that moment
until his retirement following the 1966 season, Koufax was the most
dominating pitcher in history. He threw a no-hitter a year from 1962-65,
including a perfect game, and retired at 30 with a throbbing elbow after
posting back-to-back seasons of 26 and 27 victories, respectively.
In his final season, Koufax was 27-9 with a 1.73 ERA. He finished
first in the National League in wins, first in ERA for the fifth consecutive
season, first in complete games for the second straight year, first in
strikeouts for the fourth time in six years and first in innings pitched. He
won his third Cy Young Award in four years that season before retiring
prematurely. Koufax explained his decision simply by saying he was leaving
baseball “while I can still brush my teeth.”
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Hitters who had gritted their teeth and then failed so regularly when
facing him for half a decade were baffled. Many could not believe his elbow
pain could be that severe considering all he had done. If he had another 10
years of good health after that, as Clemens has had, the possibilities of
what he might have accomplished are staggering. Yet suffice it to say that
what the great Pittsburgh Pirates’ slugger Willie Stargell once had to say
about him describes Koufax best and at his best.
Stargell said facing Koufax was, “like trying to drink coffee with a
fork.” About who else was such a thing ever uttered?
As great as Clemens is — and he is the greatest pitcher of his era —
at least one starting pitcher was greater than he has been. Not for as long
as Clemens has been great, to be sure, but in those years between 1961-66 no
starting pitcher ever pitched like Koufax. No one.
Then again, if you ended up stuck with Clemens at the top of your
rotation instead of Koufax, you could have done a lot worse. A whole lot
worse.




Ron Borges writes regularly for NBCSports.com and covers the NFL and boxing
for the Boston Globe.


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