ROCKET'S SAD STARE - ACE CLEMENS 'HEARTBROKEN' BY VIDEO SNUB

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ROCKET'S SAD STARE

ACE CLEMENS 'HEARTBROKEN' BY VIDEO SNUB


By F. CARTER SMITH in Piney Point Village, Texas, and ERIC LENKOWITZ in NY

NY POST

September 23, 2008 --

Estranged former Yankee Roger Clemens was "heartbroken" when his former team left him out of Sunday night's Stadium-farewell festivities, which included a video montage honoring the Bronx Bombers' greatest pitchers - but not him, a relative told The Post yesterday.

Clemens was sitting at home in hurricane-ravaged Texas, in front of a battery-operated television on his living room couch, when the team delivered a final crushing blow to its former star.

Clutching wife Debbie's hand on one side and mother-in-law Jan Wild's on the other, Clemens tuned in to his final team's last home game hoping for some recognition for helping win two World Series titles, Wild said.

But that Rocket never launched.

When the team played the video celebrating its greatest players at every position, the steroid-scandal-scarred Clemens was nowhere to be seen.

"Debbie and I held his hand while we watched the game, and he was heartbroken," said Wild, 70. "Not mad. He still loves baseball and the Yankees, but it was sad what they did to him."

Even Chuck Knoblauch - who was also named in the scathing Mitchell Report on steroids - was acknowledged on the big screen, hailed as the second baseman of the 1990s. Fellow steroid targets Andy Pettitte and Jason Giambi were at the Stadium in uniform for the Yankees.

Aside from Clemens, also noticeably absent from mention was former manager Joe Torre, who guided the Yankees to 12 straight playoffs and four World Series victories.

"A lot of great Yankees were not mentioned," the team insisted in a statement. "There was no slight intended, and perhaps both Clemens and Torre should have been mentioned as well as several others."

Clemens watched the telecast inside his mansion, which is still suffering the effects of Hurricane Ike weeks after it tore through Texas.

Clemens and his family have about 20 trees down in the yard and flooding in the den, and Sunday's broadcast didn't lift any spirits in the battered household, Wild said.

Yesterday, Clemens headed to Florida, where his son, Koby, is in an instructional league for the Houston Astros.

Wild said Roger has helped out around Houston as the city recovers from the hurricane.

She believes his claim that he never used steroids.