Q&A; WITH ROGER CLEMENS

Next season will be Roger Clemens’ 19th in the big leagues, but even as he approaches 40 “The Rocket” shows few signs of slowing down. With a fastball that’s still routinely clocked in the 95-mph range, he was 20-3 and averaged about a strikeout per inning for the Yankees last season in winning his sixth American League Cy Young Award.

Clemens keeps a fast pace during the off-season, too. Last weekend, he played in the pro-am at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, and on Monday he was in Las Vegas making an appearance for major league baseball.

Part of his Las Vegas gig was to “pitch” to a group of businessmen, tossing easy fastballs over the plate so the “batters” could say they got a hit off a future Hall of Famer.

Easier said than done. Clemens said one of the executives kept inching closer to the plate with each swing and miss. “I kept telling him to step back away from the plate a little, but he just kept moving in,” Clemens recalled. I told [one of the organizers], ‘I really don’t want to hit this guy!’”

On Tuesday, Clemens was in Carson, shooting a television commercial for DirecTV--with the proceeds from his appearance going to the Roger Clemens Foundation, an organization he and his wife, Debbie, established in 1992 to support several children’s charities. Before the shoot, he took a few minutes to talk to Times Senior Assistant Sports Editor Mike Hiserman about the state of baseball, the Yankees and his career. The only taboo subject: Mike Piazza.

Q: Baseball was on a high coming off a great World Series, but since then fans have been subjected to talk about contraction, Senate hearings, lawsuits and labor issues. What are your thoughts?

A: We all need to get on the same page, there’s no question about it. The game is just too good right now. [Even so] everyone knows it couldn’t handle another stoppage. I don’t think that’s going to happen, but we can’t solve [ownership’s] problems. Contraction? Well, I think about the guys that are going to lose jobs and I think about the people behind the scenes that are going to lose jobs. I dislike even talking about it. I think everybody saw what was going on in the Senate, what was going on on TV. We’ve [asked] many times for [owners] to give us their books and let’s get this thing on the right page. It’s never happened.

Q: Critics who say money buys championships are quick to take their shots at the Yankees because of the big payroll. How should baseball level the competitive playing field?

A: As soon as you say that, you have a Minnesota Twins’ team leading its division halfway through the season. A $110-$115 million payroll doesn’t guarantee you success. Obviously [Yankee owner] George Steinbrenner built his empire in New York and he’d probably tell other owners to move if they can’t run their business properly.

Q: What’s it like playing for an organization that can afford players like Jason Giambi, Rondell White, Robin Ventura and Steve Karsay to help fill any perceived voids in the lineup?

A: It makes me excited to get busy again and start working because I know I have a lot of guys counting on me to be successful. Obviously, it’d be different if I thought I was on a club that was going to lose 100 games. I continue to tell some of these guys who were [Yankee] farmhands--[Andy] Pettitte, [Derek] Jeter and [Mariano] Rivera--just how spoiled they are because they don’t know the other side. I’ve been in the situation that Pedro Martinez is in over there [in Boston]. You have to win every five days. They’re going to wear him out. He’s been hurt the last four years. He doesn’t have the body style I have, that I tried to build because of all that. Here, it’s the opposite. I know if I have a hiccup I got [Andy] Pettitte and I got [Mike] Mussina and El Duque and now even [David] Wells.

Q: When you left Boston after the 1996 season, Red Sox General Manager Dan Duquette was quoted as saying you were in the twilight of your career. In the six seasons since, you’ve won 20 or more games four times. Were his comments motivation?

A: That story has gotten its mileage. I’ve told many people, and some general managers take heed to it, that in our game you have to look past a guy who can throw 95 miles per hour or hit a ball 400 feet. You look at their character and what they’re about. The truth is going to get told one day.... I’ve been biting my lip. I wasn’t offered anything back there. [Duquette] tried to make me look like the villain, and the fans basically turned on me, but that’s part of the game.... Everybody talked about money at that time, but I got an offer from Colorado that would have made me twice the highest-paid pitcher. But I told my agent, ‘There’s not a lot of Hall of Famers coming out of Colorado.’ At least not pitchers. Hitters maybe, if they stay around enough.... When I went to Toronto, [team owner] Mr. [Paul] Beeston said he was going to rebuild the team. But then things there changed a little bit, so I was real fortunate I had an out and [the Yankees] made the trade for me. The rest, as they say, is history. Two rings and World Series experiences. The parades that I’ll never forget. Playing in New York now with all the tragedies that have happened. Gosh, what else? Now having maybe a chance to chase down 300 [career victories; he needs 20 more].

Q: Your training routine in legendary. What’s involved?

A: It’s a five-day plan. I’m convinced the amount of [abdominal] work we do now is what has kept my back strong. When you kick your leg up and push off, your stomach contracts. I know it’s why Andy [Pettitte], after throwing 87-88 miles an hour, is throwing 94-95 miles an hour. We’re doing 600 to 800 abs four times between starts. We have a program where we’re nonstop for about 48 minutes that’ll just wear you out. We had two of the young kids come and join us in Baltimore and they both threw up. Here I’m 39 and they’re 25. Running, we try and get three miles in under 21 minutes. Andy’s 6-5 and 230 and I’m 6-4, 235-237, so we’re moving pretty good. As far as specifics, we kind of keep it to ourselves because I don’t want someone else trying it and getting hurt doing it.

Q: What keeps you at it every day?

A: It’s like I told Andy last week when we’re working, killing ourselves, at 7 in the morning. Midway through I looked at him and said, ‘Who y’all think is working right now? You think anyone else is working right now?’ They’re not. They’re going to be working at 1 in the afternoon and go for about 45 minutes, and they’ll try to get [in shape] in spring training.

Q: A lot of purists talk about the importance of being able to pitch inside and move people off the plate. Why do you need to do it, and is it a lost art?

A: The reason for pitching inside is real simple. It makes a 17-inch plate a 24-inch plate. You can expand the plate and expand the zone and that’s what you want to do. But my main thing is--and this is why people don’t get out of the way and they get hit--is that when I go inside I don’t aim the ball, I throw the ball. I turn it loose. When you do that, if you’re an eighth of an inch off, you’re going to hit guys. It’s part of the game. They don’t apologize when they hit balls up the middle. I got a bruise here (pointing to a spot on his left shin) from 10 years ago that’s going to be here for the rest of my life. It looks like somebody hit me with a sledgehammer. I throw the ball up there 95-96 miles per hour and have been hit by it coming back at 140 miles per hour. Even your molars hurt.

Q: What are your main goals before you retire, and how would you like to be remembered?

A: Hopefully I can get to 300 [victories]. And if I do it in the Yankee uniform, that’s going to say a lot about what hat I wear in the Hall. I’ll be remembered, hopefully, like some of the guys I’ve passed. I still shake my head when I pass a Joe Wood or the Big Train like I did this past year for strikeouts in the American League. There are some records that I didn’t even know about that our P.R. guy keeps me aware of and it’s very exciting when I get a guy within reach. I never thought about it much, but now I realize how hard it was for the guys I’m catching to attain all those strikeouts and throw those shutouts and get those wins. I want to play 24 or 25 years. This will be my 19th. And the main goal is the same as it’s always been. We’re trying to win again.