Roger Clemens Unlikely To Join Astros In 2012

For this year, at least.

But true to form, Clemens, who has already come out of retirement three times to pitch in the majors, left open the possibility of a future comeback.

“I would have to get ready,” Clemens said. “It would be fun. There’s no reason why I couldn’t do it next year.“You were warned.

I watch baseball for a lot of reasons. I enjoy the symmetry of the game and its dimensions -- how a chopper to short perfectly straddles the line between hit and out. I’m fascinated with the isolation of the hitter/pitcher match-up, which is something unique in the major team sports. I like watching mascots in foam costumes run around the perimeter of a ballpark because sometimes they trip.

Mostly, though, I watch baseball because I want to be entertained. It’s why you watch it, too. There are different ways you can be entertained, but that’s the reason we watch. And on Tuesday, two entertaining (if unrealistic) scenarios were shot out of orbit.

And a turn:

Astros players have told their buddies on other teams they think it’s already a “done deal” that Clemens will pitch in Houston once or twice this September. And an old friend of The Rocket told Rumblings that he is convinced Clemens is pointing toward the big leagues and “trying to find out what he’s got left.”This story changes from day to day, so it would still be no surprise to see Clemens in a Houston uniform before the end of the year. Stay tuned.

It’s further been speculated that Clemens’ possible return to the big leagues would be for the specific reason of delaying by five years his eligibility for the Hall of Fame.

CBSSports.com’s Jon Heyman has little doubt about that, though:

Yes, of course it would be done as a stunt. Clemens isn’t going to be in good enough shape to pitch more than three or four innings at a time, and he’s probably not good enough, period, to last that long anyway. But as I noted last week, there’s a long history of stunts involving old pitchers. While it might seem undignified at the time, eventually it becomes just another morsel of baseball lore.

Roger Clemens isn’t sure what the next step in baseball will be for him, but he says he has no further game appearances lineup up at the moment.

“Not at this point,” Clemens told the Houston Chronicle. “That could change in a couple days, but right now we haven’t talked to any of the guys or anything like that.”

As always, we await developments.

“I probably overextended myself a little bit,” Clemens told reporters. “I wanted to see where I was at. Anytime you do these, they’re fun but you don’t want to go out and embarrass yourself or embarrass the club.”

“The thing that I was impressed with is you have a 50-year-old man out there throwing 87-88 [mph] most of the night, and he’s got a real good splitter,” he told the Associated Press. “His command wasn’t as good as it could have been, but that it was a good, hard splitter, which is what you wanted to see.”

Clemens departed with a 1-0 lead, and did not walk any hitters in his debut. His highest-clocked pitch of his 37 total reached 88 miles-per-hour, and after leaving the mound, Clemens was seen in active conversation with Skeeters teammate Scott Kazmir, former major-league pitcher for the Rays and Angels.

After Clemens left the game, Skeeters manager Gary Gaetti, the former major-league third baseman, said he hopes to have the right-hander pitch again, depending on how Clemens feels, and that he would have left Clemens in if the Dayton native had insisted on continuing his start.

You might have heard that Roger Clemens pitched Saturday night.

After the jump, what happened to the first professional hitter Clemens faced since 2007 ...

“I don’t know how much clearer I can say it,” Clemens said. “I’m nowhere near major league ready, nor have I been training or pitching in that type of mode.”

In fact, Clemens sounded unsure how long he’ll last against minor-league hitters. “Get here early,” he said, “‘cause it might go by pretty quick. I hope it’s more than one or two innings, but it might not be. I don’t know what to expect. I’m going to get out here, kick my leg up and try to get behind some baseballs, and turn `em loose.”

The network will have a pregame interview with Clemens, in-game interviews with Skeeters manager Gary Gaetti and team adviser/former Astros president Tal Smith, as well as a post-game interview with Clemens on Baseball Tonight.

Clemens last pitched in 2007, and his retirement has been of the relaxing sort. He’s spent a good amount of time in front of Congress as a face of baseball’s steroid scandal, and was even charged with perjury for his testimony to Congress in 2008. He was acquitted of those six charges in 2011.

If all of those things happen, though? Yes, it would be a stunt. But Clemens would hardly be the first geriatric pitcher to make a comeback for reasons beyond simply winning baseball games.

To wit, let us hearken back! Through those dusty pages of Baseball-Reference.com!