2 calls in May 2007: Red Sox don't get one they expected. Brian McNamee got the other.

• Boston Globe, 5/6/07- "The Red Sox had their chance to pre-empt Roger Clemens's elaborately staged announcement Sunday afternoon that he had agreed to pitch for the New York Yankees again.

Clemens's agent, Randy Hendricks, was in Boston last week for meetings with Sox brass Tuesday and Wednesday

• and had dinner in John W. Henry's box Wednesday night during the Sox-Athletics game when the Sox made their bid for the Rocket.
• It was for a pro-rated $18 million, more than $10 million less than the pro-rated $28 million Clemens agreed to take from the Yankees.

Sox CEO Larry Lucchino, according to club sources, thought Clemens was still days from making a decision - Lucchino believed this Thursday was the operative date - leaving the Sox time to tweak their offer if they chose.

Instead, the next time the Sox heard from the Clemens camp was Sunday afternoon, when general manager Theo Epstein received a courtesy call from Hendricks - a similar one was placed to Houston GM Tim Purpura - informing him Clemens had elected to sign elsewhere.

Club executives, including Epstein and Lucchino, declined to comment. The team released a statement which, in part, read:

• ''We offered a substantial salary and suggested, for health purposes, that Clemens return on approximately the same timetable as last year. Today we learned from Randy that Clemens has signed elsewhere.''...

From Boston Globe article by Gordon Edes, 5/6/07, "Yankees go over the Top for Rocket; Sox Offer Falls Short"***

• ALSO IN MAY, 2007, per SI.com by Jon Heyman, 1/7/08:

from SI.com, 1/7/08:

• "McNamee received the first call from the feds way back in May (2007). "I was pretty compelled to tell the truth,'' is the way McNamee put it. "It made me sick,'' he says. 'I was hospitalized for the stress.''

• Three months later, in August, he was called before Mitchell, and asked to nod to what he told the feds the month before. When he was done nodding, he says Mitchell hugged him. But he claims he took no pride in it."

"Exclusive: McNamee Stands Behind Story," 1/7/08, SI.com by Jon Heyman

• And,

"McNamee was working out with him (Clemens) in Kentucky when he first got the call to appear before investigators. In fact, he trained Clemens multiple times through the period of his questioning — putting the pitcher through his paces even as he wrestled with what to tell federal agents.”....(WSJ Daily Fix on NY Magazine report)

• *Note: I've never been a Clemens fan, noted here 4/16/07. I post this for historical reference and because no one else will. sm

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