Review: Facing Clemens

Hitters on Confronting Baseball’s Most Intimidating Pitcher

By Jonathan Mayo. The Lyons press, 2008.

Mayo, a senior writer for MLB.com, had his book ready to go before the Mitchell Report was released last month. One can only imagine what he thought about the trickle-down effect caused by the revelation that Clemens was about to replace Barry Bonds as the biggest question mark in the game. And by question mark, I think I’m being charitable; most surveys I’ve seen place public opinion squarely against The Rocket.

After the release of the Mitchell Report, I wondered if any of the 13 players Mayo interviewed in the book would like to revise their opinions. Well, 12 if you give a pass to Koby Clemens, who faced his father in batting practice and an exhibition game. Would they still hold Roger in the same high esteem if they thought his gifts were store-bought instead of natural?

None of that, of course, is Mayo’s fault. He wrote an honest appraisal, supplementing his narrative with plenty of statistical evidence (perhaps too much at times), picking players who faced Clemens on a regular basis (Cal Ripken Jr. and Ken Griffey Jr.) or in limited appearances (Gary Carter); who did well or poorly (Torii Hunter and Phil Bradley) against him; who knew him for a longtime (Dave Magadan, Julio Franco) or recently came on the scene (minor leaguer Johnny Drennen). The rest of the batters include World Series opponents Chipper Jones, Darryl Hamilton, Luis Gonzalez, and Juan Pierre.

Clemens himself wrote the foreword for the book. Needless to say, he had nothing to say about the murmurs that were circulating even before the MR.

Somewhere on the Internet, there must be a website that would tell you who Clemens hit more than any other batter, but one sticks out to any fan of the game: Mike Piazza.

According to Baseball-reference.com, Piazza has a .421 career regular season batting average off Clemens Five of his eight hits (in 19 at bats) went for extra base hits, four for homers. It was after one of those homers that Clemens hit him in the head with a pitch. As if that wasn’t bad enough — Clemens should absolutely no contrition — the Game 2 of the 2000 World Series, the pitcher threw Piazza’s sawed-off bat at him as he trotted to first. (It would have been most interesting to hear Piazza’s assessment of Clemens.)

Overall, Facing Clemens is a “good piece of hitting” by Mayo. It will be interesting to see if the fallout from recent and future events will play into the book’s sales.