Reader Email of the Week

I don't normally run a lot of reader email, but once in a while I get one that makes me laugh or think. This one, from reader Royce Newman, is of the former variety:

Shyster,

I have to vent here, because this whole Clemens thing has reached the point of saturation with one aspect of my life, and ruined a perfectly good arrangement in my house. I should preface this entire thing by saying I really never have been a huge fan of Clemens – having caught wind of his sorriness long ago. However, when it came to bringing the goods, and as a fan of The Great Game, you have to respect what he brought with him when he took the mound. I think if George Foster had been a pitcher, he would have pitched like Clemens. And, like myself, he’s a Houstonian, so he got the benefit of the doubt.

That said, I had to buy a new clothes dryer last year. I jumped into my truck, went to Best Buy, bought a new one, brought it home, and hooked it up. As I was going over the manual on the unit I decided I had a much better way to mark the heating gradients on the dial. I pulled out my handy label making contraption and made out three replacements to affix over the factory indicators. The standard "Low", "Medium" and "High" markings were replaced accordingly: "Oprah," "The Allman Brothers," and "Roger Clemens." Having a more real-world nomenclature to work from made the drudgery of laundry an improved experience. And it spawned exchanges in the house like this:

Daughter: “Daddy, do jeans go on, ‘The Allman Brothers”?

RBN: “For jeans Honey, you better call up Roger – you need to bring the High Heat”

You see what I mean? Even domestic situations will, at times, demand you bring it in as hard as you can. It all made sense.

However, I had to remove the labels over the weekend, as I could no longer stand having Roger’s karma foul up my laundry room. And, more importantly, it really wouldn’t be the same with another pitcher replacing him. I thought about using Nolan Ryan originally, a pitcher who every red-blooded, baseball-loving Texan idolizes. Even though history will defend that Nolan never hesitated to bring it in higher, harder and more inside than completely necessary, (Robin Ventura will attest to this), Nolan is widely regarded by most as a soft-spoken, country gentleman. Clemens is regarded as a thug. And when you’ve got dirty work to do, you want a thug doing it.

So I had to return my dryer back to the banal, factory indicators, and doing laundry on Cheyenne Drive is just like doing it everywhere else. Roger and his selfish antics have ruined everything – the bastard.

I agree 100%, Royce. Clemens is history's greatest monster.