Do steroid charges tarnish Clemens’ legacy? NAY: His Red Sox days gave him plenty of legitimacy

One of the great things about baseball is its tendency to celebrate former stars. It seems like a win-win proposition. Guys like Johnny Pesky and Luis Tiant seem to enjoy their positions of prominence at Fenway, and older fans can point them out to their children and say they watched these men play when they were their kids’ age.Which is why I hope, someday soon, we can look at this Roger Clemens situation more calmly than we did when he faced the judge in federal court and pleaded not guilty to using banned substances in the big leagues. I hope we can put these charges in context – that they represent a bruise, but not a TKO, on his career.We Red Sox fans are probably still bitter over his ditching Boston in 1997 ? landing with the loathed Yankees two years later (even though, technically, he had no part in it) ? winning two World Series championships with the Pinstripes when it still seemed like the Curse was very much alive in Boston ? and piling up more hardware than Home Depot.If we can assess Clemens honestly, we can see that his career is divided into two parts: I.B. (In Boston) and A.B. (After Boston). The A.B. part is too murky to explore thanks to Brian McNamee’s allegations ? but anyone who scrutinizes the I.B. part will see the elements that made Clemens a great pitcher.The Rocket compiled a robust resume in Boston from 1984 to 1996. He won three Cy Young awards and an American League MVP trophy. He won when the Sox were division champs (24-4 in 1986) ? and he won when they finished dead last under Clell Laverne “Butch” Hobson (18-11 in 1992). He was a strikeout machine, fanning 20 Seattle Mariners in one game during the 1986 season.His detractors will note that he was only 40-39 over his last four years in Boston ? but in his last season, there were signs of his past brilliance. In 1996, he duplicated his 20-strikeouts-in-a-game feat, this time against the Detroit Tigers. His 10 wins that year gave him 192 for his career and tied him for first-place all-time among Sox pitchers with a guy named Denton True “Cy” Young.Of course, Clemens did not stop pitching after 1996 ? he pitched until 2007, and McNamee’s charges have made the Rocket’s stats in that span seem suspect. We will leave it to the real-life Mariska Hargitays in the crime labs to examine whether Clemens really did take steroids or human growth hormone ? but even if he used these substances, they didn’t make him entirely superhuman. He still got beaten badly against Pedro Martinez and the Sox in Game Three of the 1999 ALCS playoffs.The Rocket may never make it to Cooperstown because of the taint of substance abuse. But I do hope that we can recognize his legitimate achievements enough to welcome him back for Old-Timers Day.Rich Tenorio is The Item’s sports copy editor.