Roughly a half day before Roger Clemens’ name popped up all over the internet after the apparent suicide of ex-paramour Mindy McCready, the Rocket spoke with the Houston Chronicle’s Brian T. Smith about Mike Piazza’s published claims of taking karate lessons in the hopes of revenge. Surprisingly, Clemens can’t seem to ID Guillermo Mota.
Yeah, that’s great if he’s taking karate to protect himself. I don’t know. The only thing I remember is, didn’t he chase — he needs to go get with Jesse Owens or somebody on his speed, I think. He chased some dude around the spring training site one time, didn’t he, or something?… He’d have to stand in line. I think there was about three guys on the Yankees that wanted a piece of me more than (he) did. He’d probably have to get in line. But in all seriousness, he’s a — I’ve gotten to know him at golf events. Todd Zeile, another good guy, and Robin Ventura — I’ve been friends with him. Some of these guys, once you get to know some of them, they’re fine. But, like I said, there was no intent there. And Mike’s a good hitter and I think he hit every breaking ball I threw to him and he hit them hard. But he’s not the first power hitter who’s got me. So, we had some good times. But, yeah, somebody just texted me the Cliffs Notes of it, so we thought that was pretty good.”