From: g_waugaman@nac.enet.dec.com (Glenn R. Waugaman)
Subject: Re: Baseball Buns: Rocket Roger's Latest
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 21:39:57 GMT


>I feel so bad for Roger. He is such a caring individual and had to work
>so hard to mouth a few harsh words for Kimball. And to Roger's credit, he
>never once used Kimball's name.

    Be as cynical as you wish, but Roger Clemens was victim to one of the 
    most outrageously vicious smear jobs ever seen in this town, and 
    that's saying something.  To imply in print that a ballplayer, with 
    the thousands and thousands of people and their requests he's faced 
    with every year, could be responsible for breaking the heart of a sick 
    child he never met nor ever even once heard about (by the reporter's 
    admission) and prematurely contributed to that child's death is 
    disgusting, repulsive beyond words.

    From listening to all the fall-out, including on Sunday's postgame
    "Sportsbeat" program which regularly features some of the biggest
    yahoos in the Boston sports media, I'd have to say that I'm 
    pleasantly surprised by other Boston sportswriters' reaction to the 
    Clemens incident.  To a man, I haven't heard anyone yet say that they 
    blame Clemens for what he did (although one Boston Herald writer 
    did go out of his way to obfuscate around the issue of what limits
    that sorry paper he writes for and its editor should be allowed to 
    stretch the truth to in the name of "journalism"). 

    Not only did these reporters state for the record that the article was 
    unfair and that Clemens does more in the community than most Boston
    athletes, Gerry Callahan also claimed that this woman's particular 
    story was full of holes to boot, and without even considering the lack
    of context provided by the piece it was an example of very poor
    verification work.  It's apparent to me, at least, that this was 
    nothing more than another in a long line of attempts by a Boston sports
    "journalist" to make a name for himself by trying to run another great,
    sometimes unpopular athlete out of town.

    Kimball says Clemens was grandstanding.  Great!  I wish more athletes
    would do so.  Without consulting Kimball, Clemens embarrassed him in
    front of a couple dozen of his peers.  Without consulting Clemens,
    Kimball created a piece of fiction and humiliated Clemens in front of
    a half a million people.  I'd seek retribution, too, someway, somehow...

    I got a chance to hear "the lowlife" himself on the radio last evening
    and he actually had the gall to claim that he only decided to air the
    woman's story in the first place because it contradicted Clemens'
    previously stated "autograph policy", and that under close examination
    he really never came out and wrote that Clemens knowingly denied an 
    autograph to a sick child (isn't that convenient, all we had to do was 
    read between the lines, and *no problem*).  Yeah, right.  I don't know 
    about you guys, but I lie awake at nights worrying about the ongoing
    saga of the ballplayers' ever-changing autograph policies.  Maybe even
    enough to buy the Herald.  They're providing a public service, almost.

    It's amazing how far some of this "journalist" and his "editor" will 
    bend the truth and still expect a gullible public to buy into it.  
    Sickening, really, considering how even after being cold-busted by their 
    peers they continue to try to turn the tables by presenting totally
    irrelevant defenses like Clemens didn't even read the article, or was 
    too stupid to read between the lines, or waited too long to respond, etc...

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Glenn Waugaman
Digital Equipment Corporation
Littleton, MA
g_waugaman@nac.enet.dec.com
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Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball