Cito Gaston Lambastes Roger Clemens For “Getting Him Fired”
Posted April 2, 2009 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
When it comes to the name Roger Clemens, Blue Jay manager Cito Gaston doesn’t mince words.
And some of those words, we can’t print.
Gaston believes an allegation making the rounds that the former baseball All-Star played a role in getting him fired back in 1997 is true.
“I wouldn’t doubt that,” Gaston confirmed in Florida, right before his squad lost 8-5 in one of the final spring training tune-ups against the Tigers. “He’s an ass**** himself, a complete ass****. I’d say that loud, right in his face. It’s all about him, nobody else but him.”
The allegation comes in the new book “The Rocket That Fell To Earth” by author Jeff Pearlman.
The book looks at the career of the fading multiple Cy Young Award winner, and adds that Clemens was the one who pushed Jays’ brass to hire successor Tim Johnson. That decision turned out to be a disaster for the team and the replacement was fired just a year after being appointed for lying about his military service.
Gaston was fair with the Rocket, praising him for his legendary work ethic, noting he was a great player – but not a great person. He recalls hearing Clemens question his authority and trying to undermine him with the team, including openly wondering why he left pitcher Pat Hentgen in a game when the former Red Sox star thought he should have been pulled.
Gaston claims if he’d confronted him with the defiance, there would have been, in his words “an ass whuppin.'”
He claims he had a later conversation with his starter, who asked him he if “wanted to leave,” a question the skipper says he didn’t understand at the time. And then the axe fell.
Clemens has since been accused of using steroids and has gotten into hot water with Congress about the truthfulness of his testimony denying it.
Gaston, back for his second now-Clemens-less go round with the team, calls the retired hurler a bitter old man and reveals he doesn’t have much good to say about him.
Cito Gaston talks with pitcher Roger Clemens during a workout for pitchers and catchers at Toronto ‘s training facility in Dunedin , Florida , in February 1997. Photo credit: Peter Muhly/AFP/Getty Images
