Roger Clemens' 10 Most Jackass Moments

Roger Clemens is such an egomaniac that he requested a $22M contract (Oh, he's No. 22? How cute!), worked a stipulation into his that contract that allowed him to skip road trips, and finished that season with a 6-6 record and 4.18 ERA. Want to know how big a jackass Roger Clemens is? That moment didn't make this list.

Clemens is the kind of self-aggrandizing, narcissistic athlete that's almost mythical. He's the class bully, high school quarterback, and prom king all rolled into one menacing flame thrower. That combination is especially frightening when you're standing in the batters box and he's staring you down, barrel chested and peaking on crocodile steroids. Ask Mike Piazza.

Roger Clemens. The misplaced bravado of a world class athlete. The entitlement of a multimillionaire. The crippling insecurity that goes with having erectile dysfunction. Here are his 10 Most Jackass Moments.

RELATED: Karl Malone's 10 Most Jackass Moments

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Date: April 2009

Unless you play for Ozzie Guillen, you can count on your manager to be pretty gracious in defending his current and former players. Managers are fiery guys, that face-to-face umpire arguing is perhaps the most inexplicable form of human interaction. But still, when it comes to players, managers seem to respect some sort of unwritten code. Unless you're Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston and someone asks you about Roger Clemens.

Gaston was allegedly shown the door (despite having won a pair of World Series rings with the club) because Clemens convinced Jays brass to bring Tim Johnson to the club. When asked about Clemens before Opening Day in '09, the former Jays skipper went off.

"He's an asshole. A complete asshole." Gaston responded, "When he's pitching, everyone's in the dugout pulling for him, but when he's not pitching he's not in the dugout."

After continuing his tirade with a story about Clemens undermining his authority in managerial decisions Gaston continued, "He wouldn't (confront me). One of us would have had an ass whuppin' that day. It might have been me, but he still would have known I was there."

Date: The last 25 years

You know how annoying it is when parents name all of their kids with the same first letter? "Hi, meet my kids Brittany, Blake, Bryan, Bailey, Bernie, and Benjamin." Ugh, those people. Well, Clemens did the same thing, only worse.

He gave all of his kids names that started with 'K' because, you know, he, like, strikes people out. Even more obnoxious is the fact that his kids' names (Koby, Kory, Kacy and Kody) are actually 'C' names, not 'K' names at all. You can't spell Kory and Kody with a 'K.' Right? Unless, of course, you're a total jackass.

Date: October 10, 1990

During the '90 ALCS the Red Sox had an opportunity to go to the World Series, their first since the Woodrow Wilson administration. Well, in the second inning of Game 4 Roger Clemens went ballistic on home plate umpire Terry Cooney for calling a small strike zone. The legendary tirade culminated with an ejection and Clemens reportedly telling Cooney that he was going to find out where he lives and "get [Cooney] this winter." The BoSox lost the game and were swept by the A's.

Date: August 18, 1988

During an interview with Channel 5 Boston's Mike Dowling, Clemens said of the traveling that goes with being a baseball player, "it's not easy carrying your luggage around." The Rocket went on to dog the Fenway park facilities, lack of a support staff, and addressed his reported charging for autographs. His contract negotiations and subsequent media fallout gave birth to the out of touch, self aggrandizing diva athlete we know all too well today.

Later in the year, Dowling sat down with Clemens again, this time to supposedly set the record straight. Clemens, instead, gave irrefutable evidence of his being a total jackass by threatening the media with, "somebody's going to get hurt... and it isn't going to be me."

Date: April 27, 2008

Before Tiger Woods, there was Roger. The Rocket had a long history of extramarital flings that unraveled one after another when it was reported that he'd had a long term affair with country singer turned drug addict Mindy McCready. Clemens allegedly met the singer when she was only 15 years old at, of all places, a karaoke bar. Apparently smitten with her drunken rendition of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire," the two reportedly spent the night together. At the time Clemens, was married with two kids. Shocking.

McCready's gone on to make a mess of her life by, among other things, leaking a sex tape and appearing on Dr. Drew's Celebrity Rehab. In the aforementioned sex tape she alludes to the ironically nicknamed Rocket as having "a lot of problems" in reference to his, shall we say, not being game ready.

Date: November 1986

In 1986 Clemens had a dominating season. He won 24 games, struck out close to 250 batters and had an ERA of 2.48. The Rocket became one of only eight guys in MLB history to win both the MVP and Cy Young Award in the same season.

Hank Aaron let it be known that he thought pitchers shouldn't be eligible to win the MVP on the basis of their only playing a fifth of the games. To which Clemens peacefully responded, "I wish he were still playing. I'd probably crack his head open to show him how valuable I was." Where do those dumb jock stereotypes come from again?

Date: December 12, 2007

OK. Before you get all worked up about Clemens' recent "not guilty" verdict on six counts of perjury, remember that Casey Anthony and OJ Simpson were both "not guilty." Since Complex isn't bound by the same burden of proof as a Federal Court, we're going with anecdotal evidence. And, for the Rocket, it's pretty damning.

Clemens was throwing 96-mph at 45-years-old. His supposed best friend Andy Pettitte attested to Clemens admission of taking HGH. And towards the end of his career, that Yankee jersey was form fitting his barrel chest like a tube sock around a pitbull. So, if you don't mind, we're calling bullshit on Roger's professed innocence.

Perhaps most telling was his play on the field. Clemens started the '98 season with a 9-6 record and an ERA close to four. Then, his longtime trainer and alleged steroid supplier, Brian McNamee, joined the Blue Jays training staff. Clemens goes on to finish the season with an eleven game winning streak and a 1.71 ERA.

Date: October 25, 1986

Bill Bucker takes a lot of heat for blowing the '86 World Series. That's good news for the guy who quit on his team because of a measly blood blister in that potentially series clinching Game 6.

According to Red Sox manager Joe McNamara, a cruising Clemens pulled himself out of the game after the seventh inning by saying simply, "That's all I can pitch." At the time, the Red Sox were up a run. The bullpen went on to give up four runs (one infamously unearned) and the Mets went on to win the Series.

Clemens told reporters after the game that he had fears of hanging his slider because of the blister. Makes sense. A guy nicknamed "The Rocket" needs his slider to bite. Clemens ultimately changed the tone of his story, but waited until after McNamara's firing to say he wanted to stay in the game.

Date: April 4, 2006

The World Baseball Classic. Remember that? It was MLB's attempt to introduce an international competition, but it ended up being a Pro Bowl-like exhibition in how to dull down an already slow product.

Anyway, Clemens took it upon himself to make a stupid idea embarrassing by adding some good 'ole Texas charm to the event. In reference to a game between Japan and Korea, Clemens profoundly noted, "None of the dry cleaners were open, they were all at the game, Japan and Korea. So we couldn't get any dry cleaning done out there, but I guess the neatest thing is that 50,000 of them were at Anaheim Stadium."

Japan ultimately won the World Baseball Classic. The U.S. was eliminated in an upset by Mexico. Clemens pitched and received the loss.

Date: October 22, 2000

During an interleague series in July, Roger Clemens dusted the ear hole of Mike Piazza with a heater. The beanball dropped Piazza to his back and gave the Mets catcher a concussion. When the two met again in the World Series, many wondered to what lengths Clemens would sink in order to scar a guy who had the nerve to hit a couple homers in Yankee Stadium. Thankfully, the Rocket didn't disappoint.

Clemens went high and inside with on a 1-2 count. The pitch shattered a swinging Piazza's bat, sending a large chunk of the barrel toward the pitchers mound. Apparently incensed by Piazza's waste of perfectly good lumber, Clemens grabbed the barrel and threw it towards the Mets catcher. As is tradition in baseball, the two walked towards one another cursing, the benches cleared, and, predictably, nobody fought. In baseball, "tough guys" throw pitches, not punches.

What makes this moment especially jackass is Clemens' explanation after the game. He claimed that he thought the bat was the ball. Huh? OK, Rocket, let's go with that. You thought it was the ball, picked up in fair territory and, as someone who has played baseball his whole life, decided to huck it at the batters box? Baseball's been peg free since, like, the 80s. We think. Stop lying, dude.