Clemens Cashes In With Sox

Mike Greenwell’s term as the highest-paid Boston Red Sox player didn’t last long--not even 24 hours. Roger Clemens passed Greenwell and everyone else in the major leagues Friday, but who knows how long his status as baseball’s richest player will last?

Already, agents for New York Mets’ pitchers Dwight Gooden and Frank Viola are licking their chops as the game’s salaries keep escalating.

For the time being, though, Clemens is tops, having agreed to a four-year contract extension worth $21,521,000. The annual average value of the contract that includes an option for 1996 is $5,380,250, which boosts Clemens past the previous high of $4.7 million in the contract Oakland Athletics’ outfielder Jose Canseco signed in June. Clemens’ salary for 1991, the final season of a three-year, $7.5-million contract, is $2.5 million, which seems like spare change compared to what comes next.

The salaries: $4.4 million in ‘92, $4.5 million in ‘93, $5 million in ’94 and $5.5 million in ’95. The Red Sox have an option for ’96 at $5.5 million with a $1.5 million buyout. The Red Sox can exercise the ’96 option after the 1991 and ’92 seasons at $5.5 million. If the Red Sox wait until ‘93, the salary would rise to $5.8 million. After that, the option would shift from the team to Clemens and would become $6 million a year. He also gets $621,000 as a bonus for agreeing to the extension.

With the agreement, Clemens will reach the $5-million-a-year level a year before Canseco and Dodgers outfielder Darryl Strawberry. Canseco is scheduled to make $5.1 million in 1995, the final season of his $23.5 million, five-year deal. Strabwerry will make $5 million in 1995, the last year of his four-year, $20.25 million contract.

“We believe Roger Clemens is the best player in baseball and deserves to be paid the highest salary in baseball,” Randy Hendricks, one of Clemens’ agents, said. “That is now the case. He has commenced a distinguished career in Boston, and this contract is calculated to keep him in Boston the duration of his career, although we hope we can do one or two more contracts at the end of this one.”

“We are all delighted to get this contract finished,” Red Sox General Manager Lou Gorman said in a prepared statement. “Roger is obviously a very important member of this ballclub, and this is a big step toward keeping the Red Sox winning over the next five years. He is not only one of the best pitchers in Red Sox history, but the premier pitcher in baseball today.”

Red Sox Manager Joe Morgan, reached in Providence, R.I, where he had a speaking engagement, said, “I thought all along he would stay, but who knows in this day and age? I wouldn’t want to contemplate a staff without him. Every time he pitches--I’ve said it a million times--you’re almost shocked when he loses. It’s great to have a guy like that around.”

Clemens, 28, has a .695 career winning percentage (116-51). Since he joined the Red Sox, the team has a .501 winning percentage in games he hasn’t started. The right-hander was 21-6 last season with a major league-best 1.93 ERA. He is the team’s career strikeout leader (1,424) and has 41 games with 10 or more strikeouts. Clemens was the American League MVP in 1986 and the Cy Young Award winner in ’86 and ’87.

His signing was good news to Gooden and Viola as well. Both seek contract extensions, and their agents were awaiting the Clemens signing. Gooden enters the final season of a three-year, $6.7 million contract. Viola is completing a three-year, $7.9 million deal.