Customer Reviews

Facing Clemens: Hitters on Confronting Baseball's Most Intimidating Pitcher

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Jonathan Mayo's analysis of Clemens would be a remarkable achievement in its own right, generously offering up honest analysis and insights into some the most intriguing personalities in Baseball. On its own right, Mayo's interviews reveal a side of these stars that most sports journalists either gloss over or miss altogether. All of this is true in its own right, but when you consider that Mayo wrote this book months before the whole story on Clemens broke out, then one can really see that this book is destined for history. Going forward, any other author will forever be tainted by the "scandal" side of Clemens and all the spurious conjecture and speculation. Lost forever is the opportunity to objectively view Clemens through the untainted lense that he will forever be viewed by history, whether he is proven innocent or not.

As such, baseball fans and in particular, Yankees fans, owe a debt of gratitude to Mayo for serving up what future baseball historians will no doubt recall as the last authoritative look at Roger Clemens the athlete, both for physical prowess, as much as if not more so for the terrific mental focus and awareness that he was able to bring to his game.

Mayo's intimate portrayal of Clemens is a masterful display of writing for his ability to draw us sympathetically towards the story without cheapening the experience by trying to convert that moment into sympathy for Clemens himself which has been so frequently done by lesser authors.

I would have liked to see some photos of Clemens particularly with his son as that story was the one that really stood out from the others. I can't recall another interview where Clemens revealed as much about this intimate side of his family.

Food for thought for the second printing...

From reading the description, I expected this book to be focused heavily on insight from the hitters' perspectives regarding what it's like to step into the batter's box to face Roger Clemens. While there certainly was some of that, it seemed to focus much more on the opposing hitter and what sort of results he was able to achieve (or could not achieve) against Roger Clemens. Buy a cheaper used copy of this book and it will be worth your money.

Baseball just isn't the same without a
great book to read concerning baseball's
all-time greats. Roger Clemens is cetainly
one of baseball's greatest pitchers no
matter which baseball ERA you speak about.