Roger Clemens wouldn't say it. His batterymate, Mike Stanley, wouldn't say it.
But if what they were almost thinking out loud about plate umpire Richie Garcia after yesterday's 10-6 loss to Baltimore at Fenway Park could be put into words, it would be something like this:
``Hey, Richie, after the game you should make two stops - one at your ophthamologist's office and the other at the nearest charm school.''
Clemens was one strike away from escaping from an eighth-inning jam. The game was tied, 3-3. Runners were at the corners and the count was 1-2 on B.J. Surhoff.
That's when Clemens thought he had painted the inside corner with a fastball that froze Surhoff.
The Rocket took four steps off the mound toward the dugout, pumping his fist. Stanley was about to do the same, then heard Garcia call ``ball'' instead of ``strike.''
Clemens did an about-face with his back to the plate and grabbed the resin bag while Garcia gave him a stare.
And two pitches later - on his 160th and final pitch of the long afternoon - Clemens was touched for a two-run triple by Surhoff that only served to prolong the Red Sox' and Clemens' agony.
``I wanted to pitch the eighth. I felt fine. I still had good velocity and good location. [The pitch count] was academic,'' said Clemens, who wound up with no decision despite throwing 109 strikes and fanning nine. ``I just tried to keep us in position to win the game.''
What was a matter of debate, however, was the crucial non-strike and how Garcia reacted to Clemens.
``What are you going to do?'' shrugged a tight-lipped Clemens. ``It was a very crucial part of the ballgame, and the thing I found most amazing after I started to walk off and then went back and got the resin was all the guys on the bench said [Garcia] came out to get on me.
``I find that really amazing.''
Asked about the pitch, Clemens added, ``You guys saw it ... at that point I still had good command ... I guess you can't show any emotion, which is amazing to me also. They said he came out and was staring at me. I guess I just find that comical.''
Clemens said the close call was unfortunate because of the way the Red Sox came back to tie the game. And he didn't have much more to say, choosing to cut the interview short and collect his thoughts.
Manager Kevin Kennedy said after the Red Sox had tied the game, at 3-3, in the seventh that he had hoped Clemens could hold on for the win, adding only that ``for obvious reasons, he didn't.''
And Jeff Manto, whose home run took Clemens off the hook in the ninth, said he wasn't sure if the key pitch to Surhoff was a strike from his vantage point at shortstop. ``You just hope he'd call it a strike in that situation,'' he said. ``From the angle I was at, I really don't know ... that's the way it goes.''
``I'm not going to sit here and say it was or wasn't a strike,'' said Stanley. ``But it was a tough, borderline pitch that I've seen called for a strike before.''
This story ran on page D9 of the Boston Globe on 07/22/96.