The big sports story that day was actually on Page 1:
REAGAN SAYS HE CAN'T ENTICE SOVIETS TO ATTEND OLYMPICS
That was the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, of course. Since then, the Summer Olympics also have been held at Seoul, Barcelona, Atlanta, Sydney, and Athens. A lot of things have happened. No more Berlin Wall. Something called the Internet. The rise and fall of Michael Jackson. Oprah. "American Idol."
And, of course, Roger Clemens taking the mound. And taking the mound. And taking the mound.
The date was May 15, 1984. That's when Roger Clemens made his major league debut in Cleveland's mammoth and decrepit Municipal Stadium.
He pitched well enough to win and he pitched poor enough to lose. He slogged through a bizarre 5 2/3 innings, allowing 11 hits and five runs (four earned) and he wound up with a no-decision in a 7-5 Red Sox loss.
On that same evening, Jay Leno was making an appearance at Nick's Comedy Stop and Jerry Vale was pitching vocal woo at Framingham's Chateau de Ville. Local cinema enthusiasts had their pick of such flicks as "The Natural," "Breakin'," "The Bounty," and "Sugar Cane Alley."
The comparable options for the good people of Cleveland apparently had far more appeal than this matchup between the perennially abysmal Indians and the -- are you ready? -- last-place Red Sox.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud and pleased to bring, for your reading pleasure, the words of the one and only Peter Gammons, who was on site to mark this slice of Red Sox history:
"The setting for the Roger Clemens Debut was like taking a play to Dixville Notch before New Haven. On a night when the windchill factor went below freezing in a ballpark where you take your kid if he wants to understand the Depression (the announced crowd of 4,004 counted cobwebs), against a team that hasn't contended since three years before Clemens was born, Ralph Houk introduced the most ballyhooed Red Sox pitcher since Ken Brett, or maybe even Frank Baumann."
(Aside to whomever: Peter Gammons is now rich and famous because he appears regularly on TV, but I know, and he knows, that his real service to mankind was leaving behind prose like this for us all to rediscover 23 years after the fact.)
The team Roger joined was a mess. Mr. Gammons had described the situation in a dispatch printed the morning of Clemens's debut. The team, he reported, has "been playing with the animation of a forest of redwoods." He also told us, "The clubhouse is filled with the quibbling, back-biting and second-guessing diseases that plague second-division teams."
So, welcome to the big leagues, kid.
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