How Clemens' Retirement May Have Single-Handedly Sunk The Housing Market

At this rate there are going to be more books on Roger Clemens than on Abraham Lincoln ... and why not? Lincoln never kept apartments in 12 different cities for all of his women.

That's just one of the modest nuggets from "American Icon," the new Clemens book by New York Daily News editor Teri Thompson and reporters Nathaniel Vinton and Michael O'Keeffe. The book claims to "brush back" the former Yankees hurler with details on his steroid use and other shenanigans. Excerpts of the book are available today at SI.com.

When the investigators questioned Jose Canseco in April 2008, they pressed the scandal-stained slugger about a passage in his 2005 book "Juiced" that claimed Clemens never cheated on his wife. The feds, according to a source, told Canseco they were aware of apartments in more than a dozen major league cities that Clemens kept to rendezvous with girlfriends.

And of course we can never get enough news about Clemens' ass.

Even to a former New York City cop, the question was jarring. "Can you help me?" Roger Clemens asked. "I can't inject in my booty."

This is how Brian McNamee, then the Toronto Blue Jays' new strength and conditioning coordinator, remembers it all starting. He glanced up at Clemens, whose broad frame blocked most of McNamee's view of the rest of the SkyDome clubhouse. A few other players milled about the room, preparing for the upcoming series against the Baltimore Orioles. Toronto designated hitter and occasional outfielder Jose Canseco was picking through his stall nearby, his back to Clemens and McNamee.

The trainer, who had come to baseball from the NYPD, was slumped in his own stall. Why, he wondered, was arguably the greatest pitcher of his era asking for help in sticking a hypodermic needle in his ass?

One thing I didn't know: McNamee, a former cop, was one of the officers dispatched to the scene of a 1991 accident in which Conor Clapton, the 4 1/2-year-old son of Eric Clapton, was killed after falling out the window of a fourth-story Manhattan apartment.

So, let the guessing game begin. In which AL cities did Clemens not have a pad? I've got dibs on Oakland.

Ex-Yankees Ace Roger Clemens Brushed Back In Book 'American Icon' By News' Sports I-Team [New York Daily News] Fall From Grace [SI.com]