Roger Clemens isn't done with baseball quite yet.
The 50-year-old Clemens signed with the Sugar Land (Texas) Skeeters of the independent Atlantic League on Monday and he is expected to start for the minor league team on Saturday at home against Bridgeport.
"His fastball was clocked at 87 mph; all of his pitches were working," said Randy Hendricks, Clemens' agent. "He threw a three-inning simulated game after an extensive workout warm-up."
Clemens and Skeeters manager Gary Gaetti have been talking about this "for months," Hendricks said. Clemens is expected to discuss his decision today during a news conference in Sugar Land, about 30 kilometres southwest of Houston.
Clemens, who was acquitted in June of charges he lied to Congress when he denied using performance enhancing drugs, hasn't played for a team since pitching for the Yankees in 2007 at the age of 45. He went 6-6 in 18 games with a 4.18 ERA that season.
Clemens had two great seasons with the Astros after he turned 40, going 18-4 with a 2.98 ERA in 2004 to win his record-tying seventh Cy Young Award. He was 13-8 with a career-low 1.87 ERA in 2005.
Clemens earned $160 million and won 354 games in a 24-year career with the Red Sox, Yankees, Blue Jays and Astros. His 4,672 strikeouts are third-most all-time and he was named to 11 all-star games.
Now, he joins a Skeeters roster that includes former major league pitchers Tim Redding and Scott Kazmir and Jason Lane, a teammate of Clemens' on Houston's 2005 World Series team.
