As some of you out there might know, the New York Yankees played the last game ever at Yankee Stadium last week. They had a big ceremony with lots and lots of ex players making an appearance. But there was one man who was not invited to be a part of the festivities, and according to the New York Post, that man, one Roger Clemens, sat in his flooded house, with no power, watching the game on a battery-operated television with his wife and mother-in-law, and he was very, very upset that he was not asked to participate.

But I did a little checking, and I think I have found the top ten reasons that the New York Yankees didn’t ask Roger Clemens to participate.

10. They didn’t want to deal with radio analyst Suzyn Waldman breaking down on air again.

9. Roger demanded that the Yankees give his son Koby a major league contract since the Astros aren’t treating him properly.

It’s been a while since there’s been a Rocket sighting, but last weekend, Roger Clemens decided to go to a Worcester Tornadoes baseball game in Worcester, Massachusetts. You’ve probably never heard of the Worcester Tornadoes, which is probably because the Tornadoes are an independent minor league team in the Cam-Am League. And if you’re wondering why the Rocket was there visiting the dugout and bullpen, well, that’s because the Tornadoes are managed by Clemens’s former Red Sox catcher, Rich Gedman.

After last night's epic-All-Star Game, it's kind of a bummer to get back to real life, but...

Kirk Radomski, the former New York Mets clubhouse attendant who is responsible for naming a majority of the players found in the Mitchell Report, has supplied the Feds with documentary evidence stating that he shipped HGH to the Houston residence of one William Roger Clemens -- yep, the Rocket. According to the sources who spoke to the New York Daily News, the shipments correspond to the time when Mrs. Rocket was preparing for her appearance in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.

Yeah, I know I said I was on vacation, but as Al Pacino said in The Godfather: Part III: "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in."

This time, the thing pulling me back in is, of course, The Rocket. And I really should have spotted this sooner -- like on Tuesday when this legal brief was filed -- but I was too damn cheap to pay the Federal court filing system to get a look at the brief filed by Brian McNamee's attorneys in their attempt to get Rocket's defamation suit against McNamee dismissed.

I’m wondering if Rocket and his associates saw the latest news from Barry Bonds World last week. The news isn’t so much about Bonds as it’s about Greg Anderson, Bonds’ former trainer, the guy who went to jail for 13 months rather than testify to a grand jury about Bonds. And it seems that now the Feds have decided to target Anderson’s wife, making her the focus of an investigation into whether she conspired to commit a crime against the federal government.

The legal experts in the article contend that the Feds really don’t care about Anderson’s wife, and that they’re just using her to get him to talk. This tactic is often used against significant others in high-profile investigations as a means of gaining leverage and making the actual desired witness or defendant testify.

So I could easily see the Feds, if Team Rocket keeps up with their current strategy, sending Mrs. Rocket a nice little letter, saying she’s a target of a federal investigation for conspiring to commit a crime against the Feds. After all, Mrs. Rocket did illegally use HGH, which is a federal crime.

According to that bastion of journalistic integrity that is the New York Post’s Page Six, Roger Clemens is getting so desperate for money to pay Rusty Hardin’s legal bills that he’s now selling off his cars. And while it doesn’t mention anything about the various Hummer’s he supposedly owns – man, putting gas in those things must really be putting a dint in his wallet – the Post does report that Rocket has sold his Bentley to former hair-metal rocker and current “Rock of Love” star Bret Michaels.

I guess this is Bret Michaels’ way of giving the Rocket something to believe in. And maybe Rocket got enough cash on the deal so that he ain’t having nothin’ but a good time now.

Rocket, if you’re getting so desperate for cash, may I make a little suggestion? Well, actually I’ve got two. Number one involves a former employer who is desperate for pitching, seeing as his ace starter injured himself running the bases against the Houston Astros last Sunday. And with the way New Yorkers have embraced fellow roiders Jason Giambi and Andy Pettitte, I’m sure they would welcome you back in a New York minute – besides, I bet you can’t wait to team back up with your BFF Andy. And since Greg Maddux and Randy Johnson have recently had the nerve to pass you on a couple of the career milestone charts, this is your chance to, once again, show them who’s the boss.

The New York Daily News posted a story this weekend on the imminent indictment of Roger Clemens for lying to Congress. I’ve been largely complimentary of the Daily News in the Clemens matter – in fact, I believe most of the stuff that we’ve learned this year about the Rocket and steroids have come from the Daily News. But that said, I’ve got some problems with this story.

There are no sources from inside the Justice Department or Team Rocket or Team McNamee stating the indictment is just around the corner. There is no evidence of any kind in support of the claim.

I don’t think the Daily News is wrong. I just think that it’s jumping the gun.

So let's say you are an All-Star pitcher. You've won multiple Cy Young Awards, and many people consider you to be a first ballot Hall of Famer. Let's say you have a woman stashed in every city you play -- including a 15-year old. Let's say that you need to work on your endurance.

You wouldn't take steroids or HGH for this. Not when there's something available that's perfectly legal.

Roger Clemens. Meet Viagra.

That's right, The Rocket used the little blue pill to supposedly increase his performance, not in the bedroom with young Mindy, but on the pitching mound. So says the New York Daily News. And apparently Rocket's not the only one, because Viagra's apparently the new Performance Enhancing Drug of choice among athletes. Steroid godfather Victor Conte claims that all of his athletes used the over-the-counter form of Viagra known as Vitamin V, including Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, and even his athlete without a penis, Marion Jones. "It's bigger than creatine," claims Conte. "It's the biggest product in nutritional supplements."

To save Broadway, great minds have changed the way they think. Instead of creating musicals, with music written directly for the show, the great minds are lifting songs en masse from other sources and planting them in shows. For instance, Mamma Mia! is nothing but an excuse to sell more ABBA albums. Movin’ Out was an attempt to make Billy Joel relevant again. Pete Townshend turned Tommy into a musical. Queen lives on as a musical. Even Mel Brooks’ great work The Producers relies largely on songs from the original movie.

I tell you all of this as way to lead in to my musical creation, Steroids: The Musical. Instead of taking songs from just one source, I’m taking songs from various pop/rock sources to serve as the musical component to the story. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.

Things have been quiet on the Team Rocket front lately. They were even rather quiet when the bimbo eruptions first hit. They were so quiet you might have thought Team Rocket was coming to its senses and was trying to find away to get out of this whole lawsuit business before anything else could happen.

Well, you might have thought wrong. Because last night, Team Rocket struck again, this time by adding another claim to his defamation suit against Brian McNamee. The claim being the intentional infliction of emotional harm.

One of the things I try to do over here is to spotlight the news that gets overlooked. And I’ve got an item for today that I’m sure many of you here in the Houston area missed over the Memorial Day weekend. One, because the story came out on Sunday, and two, because as far as I can tell, the dead-tree edition of the Chron has yet to mention it (Richard Justice linked to it in one of his Sunday blog postings). So, without further ado…

Late Saturday night, the New York Daily News posted to its Web site another in its long string of steroid stories involving Roger Clemens. But this one was a bit different. It linked another name to Roger Clemens. No, not another mistress, but another player. That player being former Astros first baseman Jeff Bagwell, who, according to unnamed sources, was supplied steroids and HGH by Kelly Blair, of Pasadena, Texas, and the owner of 1-on-1 Elite Personal Fitness.

If the name Kelly Blair sounds familiar, that may be because he’s the one who supposedly supplied Tom Pettitte, the father of Andy Pettitte, with HGH, which Tom then provided Andy.

Houston sports fan, you are a hypocritical idiot.

What am I talking about? Miguel Tejada, that’s what I’m talking about. This guy can do no wrong in your eyes. So what if he used steroids? So what if he lied under oath to the Feds? So what if he committed fraud for 14 years? He’s getting hits, so you don’t care.

But it’s funny how it mattered with Barry Bonds. It’s funny how Barry Bonds was the most evil man in the world. How he’s supposed to be in jail and how he’s a disgrace to the game of baseball for taking steroids and lying.

Just a little update on the current happenings in Rocket World.

Despite Mindy McCready not disputing any aspect of the original New York Daily News story about her affair with Rocket, a woman, Jennifer Ryan Sirbaugh, claiming to be McCready’s roommate at the time states that Mindy was 17, not 15, and that they worked at a place called Melons. Sirbaugh was there the night McCready met Rocket, and she says it was at a place called The Bridge, not The Hired Hand Saloon, and that Rocket was 30, not 28.

The best thing that could happen to Brian McNamee in the Clemens defamation suit happened yesterday. U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison ruled that Rusty Hardin could remain as the Rocket’s attorney in the case, despite the fact that one of the main witnesses, Andy Pettitte, was also represented by Rusty Hardin for a short period of time.

Oh, don’t be fooled. There is a conflict of interest regarding Andy Pettitte, but the judge ruled, correctly, that Brian McNamee was not the correct party to request Hardin’s removal from the case.

Ladies and gentlemen, what you are about to watch is disturbing, and it might not be appropriate for young children, people with weak stomachs or heart conditions, or any person of average intelligence.

I give you Jose de Jesus Ortiz on ESPN yesterday, making the entire city of Houston look like country bumpkins.

Richard Connelly has noted how the Daily News called out the Chron as Rocket's house organ. But SI.com is on the Chron's case as well, and the writer, Jon Heyman, made note of some misleading writing in the Chron’s Rocket apology story: "The Chronicle apparently was trying to bolster Clemens by saying the report came in a 'tabloid' rather than crediting the Daily News, and leaving the reader to wonder whether it could be The National Enquirer."

But to me, what's more interesting is the civil war that appears to be erupting within the Chron sports department. It's not often the Chron writers attack each other in public, but this morning, Richard Justice called out the media toadies who are asking us to lay off Clemens by stating that Rocket brought this all on himself, and noted that these toadies are trying to "not let the facts get in the way of continuing to suck up to the Rocket and Rusty."

The New York Daily News has its version of the Roger Clemens apology. (Although come on – is it an apology if you don’t say what you’re apologizing for?)

We noticed this little dig, after a quote from Rocket’s pronouncement: “…Clemens said in a statement handed to the Houston Chronicle, a favorite outlet for Clemens and his lawyer Rusty Hardin.”

The Chron’s Jose de Jesus Ortiz Ortiz tells us he prayed for Roger Clemens at Mass yesterday. He also tells us we need to leave Rocket alone because no matter what Rocket has done, picking on Rocket harms the Rocket family.

Gee, Ortiz, are you referring to Mrs. Rocket, who Roger threw under the bus by admitting she used HGH? Do you mean that same Mrs. Rocket who had to sit behind Rocket while he was testifying before Congress, the same Mrs. Rocket who had to sit there as her husband exposed her secrets to millions of people?

I want to know where Ortiz’s cares and concerns were in December and January and February and March and April and May as Team Rocket went on the attack against Brian McNamee. I don’t recall Ortiz telling us to lay off McNamee because of the effect on McNamee’s family when Rusty Hardin played a tape of a phone conversation between Rocket and McNamee, a phone call where a desperate McNamee pleaded for Rocket to please call his son, an ill son who still worshipped Rocket. And where was Ortiz and his call for sympathy when Rocket and Hardin were out there calling McNamee a rapist? Or when people close to Team Rocket were calling McNamee a drug pusher?

We here at Houstoned Ballz do have some connections. For instance, some reader out in Hollywood sent me this transcript. It’s of a meeting between a young screenwriter and a powerful studio head. The kid’s agent, Ari Gold, set up the meeting, but Ari can’t make it because he’s got to handle some business for Vincent Chase. So the kid has to handle the movie pitch on his own.

Let’s listen in:

“It’s a biopic,” the kid (who I’ll call John) says.

“Oh, good,” the studio head (who I’ll call Max) says. “People love movies about musicians.”

“No,” John says. “It’s about sports. It’s a sports biopic.”

“I don’t know. Those sports flicks don’t do so great overseas. Unless it’s about soccer. Those foreigners are crazy about soccer.”

“No, sir. It’s not about soccer. It’s about a baseball pitcher. The greatest pitcher who ever lived.”

“Greg Maddux? Why would anyone want to see a movie about Greg Maddux? That guy is boring. He can’t even throw a decent fastball.”

“No, sir. It’s about Roger Clemens.”

“The steroids guy? Why would anyone want to see a movie about a cheater?”

Just when you think things are beginning to die down in Rocketland, something else happens.

While stating that his daughter admitted to the affair with Rocket because she is trying to re-launch her career, Mindy McCready's dad did confirm that the two had a sexual relationship, but only after she was an adult.

Now, this news comes from that shining beacon of journalism known as the New York Post, which kind of makes the National Enquirer look like a reputable news service. That said, the Post also states that it has received evidence of two other Rocket affairs.