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The Rocket That Fell to Earth: Roger Clemens and the Rage for Baseball Immortality »

Book cover image of The Rocket That Fell to Earth: Roger Clemens and the Rage for Baseball Immortality by Jeff Pearlman

Authors: Jeff Pearlman
ISBN-13: 9780061724824, ISBN-10: 0061724823
Format: Paperback
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Date Published: March 2010
Edition: (Non-applicable)

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Author Biography: Jeff Pearlman

Jeff Pearlman is a columnist for SI.com, a former Sports Illustrated senior writer, and the critically acclaimed author of Boys Will Be Boys, The Bad Guys Won!, and Love Me, Hate Me.

Book Synopsis

A fearless, hard-nosed Texan with a 98-mph fastball and a propensity to throw at the heads of opposing hitters, Roger “the Rocket” Clemens won 354 games, an unprecedented seven Cy Young Awards, and two World Series trophies over the course of twenty-four seasons. But the statistics and hoopla obscured a far darker story—one of playoff chokes, womanizing (including a long-term affair with a teenage country singer), violent explosions, steroid and human growth hormone use...and an especially dark secret that Clemens spent a lifetime trying to hide: a family tragedy involving drugs and, ultimately, death.

In The Rocket That Fell to Earth, New York Times bestselling author Jeff Pearlman reconstructs the pitcher's life—from his Ohio childhood to the mounds of Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium—to reveal a flawed and troubled man whose rage for baseball immortality took him to superhuman heights before he crashed down to earth.

Boston Globe

“Pearlman’s book develops a stark, unsparing picture of Clemens’s life that surpasses anything that’s come before.”

Table of Contents

1 High Heat 1

2 Fat Boy from Ohio 6

3 Houston Bound 20

4 College 32

5 A Legendary Longhorn 43

6 Going Pro 60

7 Rah-jah in Beantown 73

8 The Can 83

9 Dominance 92

10 A Legend in Bloom 116

11 Baggage 131

12 Unraveling 141

13 The Ladies' Man 161

14 The Devil and Dan Duquette 167

15 War 178

16 Twilight 188

17 Under the Influence 202

18 A (Not So) Yankee Doodle Dandy 214

19 Happiness 226

20 Subway Crash 236

21 Greatness by Any Means Necessary 247

22 Ignorance and Bliss 262

23 Retirement 275

24 Bess 286

25 Credibility Lost 296

26 Dead Pitcher Walking 303

Epilogue 316

Acknowledgments 321

Notes 325

Bibliography 347

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