Things Are Not Going Well for Roger, The Ultimate Diss From Yogi Berra…
Roger, when a Hall of Famer removes you from his museum, you’ve got it bad — real bad.
The Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center last week removed a Roger Clemens jersey from an exhibit about the Yankee renaissance that started in the mid-1990s.
“We’re trying to project the positive virtues of baseball,” said David Kaplan, the director of the museum, which has an educational mission. “And we have a lot of kids coming through here who are asking questions we’re not prepared to answer.”
He added that Clemens’s “jersey was raising too many issues” because of his “notoriety.”
Clemens is defending himself against accusations by his former personal trainer Brian McNamee that McNamee injected him with steroids and human growth hormone. Clemens and McNamee testified Wednesday at a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Kaplan said that he and Art Berke, the chief operating officer of the museum, which is on the campus of Montclair State University in Little Falls, N.J., decided to remove the jersey.
Berra, the living embodiment of Yankees success starting in the late 1940s, was later made aware of the decision.
and…
Kaplan said Clemens’s jersey would not be reintroduced even if he was exonerated because the exhibit now features two of the players, Jeter and Rivera, who played for the team throughout the title run. Clemens’s first tenure with the Yankees, from 1999 to 2003, coincided with two of the four championships. Clemens returned to the Yankees last season.
Without Clemens’s jersey, Kaplan said, “it’s more accurate, to be honest.” He added, “We felt we just wanted to celebrate the guys who were there from the beginning.”
Clemens’s jersey is in storage at the museum. Kaplan said he expected the museum to return it to the Yankees. “It’s been on indefinite loan to us,” he said.
Damn.
Leave a Reply