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Look back at: Divisional Playoffs |
League Championship
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Thursday, October 26
Probing Mr. Clemens
By Jim Caple
Special to ESPN.com
NEW YORK -- After a thorough review of the videotapes followed by probing interviews
with the principle participants and long, thoughtful analysis, baseball's
Minister of Justice Frank Robinson announced before Game 3 of the World
Series that Roger Clemens did not intend to hit Mike Piazza with the barrel
of the broken bat he threw during the first inning of Game 2.
He was really aiming for Keith Olbermann's mother.
What a thing. A five-time Cy Young winner snaps during a World Series game,
firing the jagged edge of a broken bat near the All-Star player he beaned in
the head earlier in the season, and days later people everywhere still are
trying to figure out what happened. Fans are pretty evenly split on this
issue. Half think Clemens threw the bat at Piazza intentionally and should
have been ejected. Half think he didn't know Piazza was there and deserved
no punishment. And Todd MacFarlane isn't sure what Clemens' intent was, but
he's bidding $3 million for the broken bat anyway.
What was Clemens thinking when he threw that bat? Thanks to the wonders of
modern phrenology, magnetic resonance imaging and Gray's Anatomy, we can
help answer that question by taking you on a guided tour of that most
mysterious of nature's objects: Roger Clemens' brain.
(Sorry, due to the graphic nature of this tour, no children are allowed
without parental supervision. If you are under 17, please click off this
web site and return to www.lustynakedcheerleaders.com. As for the rest of
you, keep your hands inside the vehicle at all times.)
Cerebral cortex: Controls hand-to-eye coordination, allowing Clemens to
throw a small, leather-covered spheroid at speeds approaching 95 miles per
hour with pinpoint accuracy. Note: Neurons occasionally misfire in this
section, causing the ball to "get away" and hit batters square in the head.
Optic nerve: Controls visual acuity, allowing Clemens to take in visual
images and determine their color, size, shape and other characteristics.
Warning: Occasional synapse misconnections may cause temporary problems differentiating
between objects of similar size and shape, such as an eight-ounce white
baseball and a broken 32-ounce wood bat.
Cerebellum: Contains the melody and the lyrics to "The Dukes of Hazzard."
Cerebrum: Stores every word ever written by every reporter who ever worked
in Boston, New York or Toronto the past 15 years, especially those bastards
who wrote that I asked out of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, which I
didn't and anyone who says differently is A DAMN LIAR!
Frontal lobe: Controls impulses of rage and violence. Sorry, Wally World is
closed for repairs. Moose out front should have told you.
Medulla oblagata: "There are 108 stitches on a baseball. Two minutes to
Wapner. K-Mart sucks. I'm an excellent driver. ... "
Left hemisphere: Entire Charles Bronson film catalogue.
Right hemisphere: Dan Duquette's address. Heh, heh, heh.
Middle cerebral artery: HTML for Victoria Secret's web site.
Frontal cortex: Fear of fire.
Basal ganglia: "Purity of essence. Essence of purity. Our precious bodily
fluids ... "
Foramen of Monro: Pi calculated to one hundred thousand digits.
Temporal lobe: "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no
play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All
work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a
dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play
makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. ... "
Jim Caple is the national baseball writer for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which has a web site at www.seattlep-i.com.
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