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

by Jonathan Mayo, Dystel & Goderich Literary Management, Roger Clemens (Foreword)

A portrait of Roger "The Rocket" Clemens draws on interviews with dozens of players, including Cal Ripken, Jr., Julio Franco, Chipper Jones, and Ken Griffey, Jr., who describe what it is like to face the intimidating Clemens in the batter's box. Original.

Genres: Baseball

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Jonathan Mayo joined the BBC in 1987, first working in radio and then television, where he won awards for his documentaries. In 2011 he became a freelance producer, director, and writer. He is the author of The JFK Assassination: Minute by Minute (Short Books, 2013). He lives in Surrey with his wife and son.

Reviews

[Dennis · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book, written during the last year of Clemens's career, of interviews of the hitters who have tried (and, in some cases, had success) to hit one of the greatest pitchers of recent memory.

It is defintitely written for baseball fans more than people with a more casual interest in the game though, and due to the way it is written, one hitter then another, sometimes it comes off as a little disjointed in the time sense, and it is hard to keep in mind exactly where he was in his career when.

Of course, it was written before the whole steroids topic came up, so it focuses on personality and work ethic instead of that more tawdry subject.

[Jeremy Cork · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finally finished - My previous thoughts remain. Upon finishing the book, my favorite chapter was the last chapter - not because it was the end of the book, but because it came right from Koby Clemens - Rogers' oldest son. It had some great perspective from the point of view of what it was like growing up with a major-league pitcher-dad and then what it was like competing WITH your dad on a professional level - playing both with Roger and against Roger. In the end....not sure I'd really recommend it unless you want to geek out on some head-to-head player stats.

Over half-way through the book and after the first few chapters of Clemens' early-years, the book seems to have taken an indirect approach to prove his innocence regarding recent doping-charges and grand jury appearances. Aside from the content of the boo

k, numerous times I have had to re-read a sentence or paragraph to understand the exactly what the author is saying; words seem misplaced and misused at times.

Initial THoughts: My admiration for Clemens was lost as the allegations surfaced late in his career. However, he was as dominant a pitcher as any early in his career. The book intrigued me because of how dominant he was. Hopefully it's a good read.