Taking a Look at Roger Clemens' Two 20k Games and Kerry Wood's

[Ramp]

very cool infographic... Kerry's late game dominance is ridiculous

[Jay]

That is ridiculous.
7 of those last 8 were swinging strikeouts. Biggio was the one person to not strike out in the final three innings. The game's first 8 batters struck out. Wood struck out 8 looking; five of those were in a row (4th and 5th inning; 3-7 hitters) Shane Reynolds pitched the complete game racking up 10 Ks in 8 IP. Wood gave up 1 hit, 0 walks and hit a batter. He also balked.

The Kerry Wood game is just so much more impressive to me after looking at this. The opposition pitching was much better. The game was closer. Wood beat a team that won 102 games; Clemens beat teams that lost 95 and 109 games. In 86 Seattle struck out 1148 placing 2nd in strikeouts in the majors; six strikeouts less then the Phillies. In 96 Detroit struck out 1268 times leading the majors. In 98 Houston struck out 1122 tying for 5th in the majors. So all the teams were strikeout prone but the teams Clemens beat were the worst while the Houston team Wood beat was strikeout prone they were much closer to league average (roughly 60 Ks more compared to the 200 over average the teams Clemens beat had).

[Madman81]

Kerry's curveball was unreal that game

[Party]

Gill Sans MT the official font of the City of Doral!

[Omar]

Kerry's curveball was unreal that game

The pitch he threw to strike out the catcher (Ausmus, I think) towards the end of the game might be the best pitch I've ever seen.

[Madman81]

Was that the cball that started at his face and ended up bouncing on the other side of the dish?

[Namaste]

Shame Clemens was (is) such a GINORMO a-hole

[CrimsonCane]

As are a lot of the people on the list of Best Baseball Players of All-Time.

Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, Ted Williams, Ty Cobb, Alex Rodriguez, Ricky Henderson, Pete Rose, etc. They all have people who consider them to be huge assholes.

Given that, I don't think Clemens's personality really diminishes anything he accomplished.

[Madman81]

Absolutely it doesn't diminish anything he accomplished. It just makes it harder to like him for his accomplishments.

[Omar]

Was that the cball that started at his face and ended up bouncing on the other side of the dish?

The one I'm thinking of was a slider that seemed to go up for about 6 inches before falling off the face of the Earth. It induced an incredibly retarded half-swing.