The Thought Process
While promoting my Barry Bonds book several years ago, I was on a radio show with Dave Zirin, a great journalist who truly thinks of things in different, unique ways. It was during the program when Zirin said, “Why is everyone looking into Barry Bonds while nobody looks at Roger Clemens?
Dave’s position, which I disagreed with, was that Bonds’ race was the primary reason. I don’t buy it—Bonds had spent years treating people like crud, and we often are given what we dish out. But whether he was right or wrong, the point was a good one: Where was the scrutiny when it came to Roger Clemens? Like Bonds, he was excelling at an age where 99.999999% of humans get slower and fatter, not faster and stronger. Like Bonds, he was huger than ever. There were just too many similarities and questions that people seemed unwilling to ask.
So that got me thinking … but it’s not the real reason I took on this project.
I wrote Rocket because, like Bonds, I wanted to know what made the man tick. We know so much about Roger Clemens in the limited, two-dimensional way, but little when it comes to the man’s true life: Who is he? Where’s he from? What led him to make certain life decisions? My goal wasn’t to praise Clemens or slam Clemens—simply to discover Clemens.
He is, I believe, a truly fascinating figure.