Rogers Clemens' New School Clashes With Baseball's Old School

Baseball purists are up in arms over the so-called special treatment the New York Yankees are lavishing on Roger Clemens, who recently re-signed with the team for $28 million to play essentially half the season.

For the last couple of years, the 44-year-old Clemens has chosen to play baseball on his terms. Instead of going through the year-long rigors of the game, the guaranteed Hall of Famer decided that he wanted to be a part-timer, watch his children grow up, spend time with his wife and live life to the fullest. The Houston Astros obliged his requests, and this year, he chose to take his seven Cy Young awards back to the House that Ruth Built, hoping to bring Yankees owner George Steinbrenner another World Series title.

But instead, he has to deal with the boo birds who are angry that Clemens won't have to travel with the team on the days he doesn't pitch, even calling him a prima donna. Former Yankee David Wells has weighed in, slamming Clemens by saying he's "disrespecting" the team with such behavior.

Clemens' teammate, reliever Kyle Farnsworth, told reporters: "I think everybody should be here whether they're pitching or not."

Now let me get this straight. Farnsworth is a nobody, but he has an opinion on Sir Roger? And Wells is an outstanding left-handed pitcher, but the best he's ever finished in the Cy Young Award race was third place in 1998. It's a far-gone conclusion that the only way Farnsworth will see Cooperstown is if he buys a ticket. Wells has a better shot, but he's not a lock.

The reason all of this is silly is that every profession has different rules for star players. Although the way the Yankees are treating Clemens may be new to baseball, it's not new to the rest of the world.

Individuals who have retired are allowed to return to their former employees as consultants or work on reduced schedules. William Raspberry was a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Washington Post.

He took a buyout from the paper, but then signed a deal to keep writing. This freed up his schedule, and didn't force him to come into the office all the time. That's called a win-win. You make way for a talent like him just to keep him in the paper.

In the Dec. 11 issue of BusinessWeek magazine, the headline read: "Smashing The Clock: No schedules. No mandatory meetings. Inside Best Buy's radical reshaping of the workplace."

Why did Best Buy choose to allow workers to do as they wish? Simple. "The goal at Best Buy is to judge performance on output instead of hours," according to the article.

Clemens has been hired by the Yankees to do one thing: pitch. And since he does that every five days, why ask him to sit on the bench just because some people think it's good for team building?

There are countless individuals who are hired for very specific jobs. Hollywood pays some screenwriters big bucks to come in, fix a script and then go on with their lives. For the life of me, I can't understand why this is perfectly acceptable elsewhere, but is somehow off-limits in sports.

Steinbrenner is a businessman. And he runs his team like a business. He'll spend whatever is necessary to get the job done and win a World Series title. And if that means giving Clemens special dispensation, go right ahead!

At every newspaper I've run, the same rule has applied: I don't care what you do, where you go, what time you come to work or what time you leave. As long as you turn in a well-written story on time, then have a great day. Go to the movies. Take a picnic with your wife — as long as I can reach you on a moment's notice if there is breaking news.

The baseball old timers should quit carping about Clemens and simply revel in seeing one of the game's greatest players — and arguably its best-ever pitcher — toss a baseball for six to seven innings every five days. Because once his playing days are truly over, we'll all be pining for the days to witness the Rocket mow down the opposition.

Roland S. Martin is a CNN contributor and a talk-show host for WVON-AM in Chicago. Please visit his Web site at www.rolandsmartin.com. To find out more about Roland Martin and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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