Have you ever seen Donald Trump being outbid at an auction, or
Star Jones passing up a ribeye in a buffet line? Well, up until
Monday the ensuing course of events would have been kind of like
that. Only worse.

Last Monday, Roger “the Rocket” Clemens ended his 78-day
retirement from the New York Yankees and, in a move strikingly
similar to Michael Jordan’s jaunt with Washington, signed a one
year contract, worth roughly $5 million, to play for the Houston
Astros.

He graciously walked across the infield grass at Minute Maid
Park, a.k.a. “Enron Stadium”, a.k.a. “the Juice Box,” and dawned
the traitorous uniform of his hometown team. He then shook hands
with Astros’ owner Drayton MacLane, who, with his deep golden brown
tan and whiting hair bears a striking resemblance to a pint of
Guinness (aaaaaaahhhhh Guinnesssssss).

He also accepted a brand new Hummer H2 from a local dealership
that was helping in the effort to lure Clemens out of retirement
and which will presumably replace the one that the Yankees gave him
not three months ago, shortly before Clemens bought himself a new
shuffle-board set and a time share in Boca Raton.

Aside from all of the interesting pitching duels this
automatically opens, like Clemens vs. Kerry Wood, Clemens vs. Mark
Prior and Clemens vs. Randy Johnson, their signing brings to mind a
much bigger dilemma, and that is that George Steinbrenner just got
“Steinbrennered.”

Sidenote: Not to say that it does but if it did, Webster’s
Dictionary would define the word “Steinbrenner” as: 1. a verb
meaning to act out using whatever resources possible to undermine
the competition and the status quo and to reach an accord with a
person or business in order to further one’s own interests and
cause detriment to the aforementioned person’s or business’
previous employer. 2. verb, TO GET PLAYED.

However, the biggest city in the country, both in terms of
numbers and in terms of egos, should have seen this one coming from
the largest city in Texas. While the Yankees now know that most
assuredly all of their exes live in Texas, and by that I mean that
the Yanks’ two best starting pitchers from last season, Clemens and
Andy Pettitte signed with Houston this off-season, the New Yorkers
must have also realized that the Magnolia City has had their sights
set on plundering the Big Apple for a while now, ever since they
stole this season’s Super Bowl a few year’s back, a Super Bowl that
New York desperately wanted (actually, they were awarded it fair
and square, but don’t tell that to New Yorkers).

So now that Houston has “the Rocket,” and they already had NASA,
and all of their glorious rockets, where do they go next? Yep, you
guessed it: the ROCKETTES, as in those high-kicking, daintily clad,
luscious vixens who have graced the stage of the Radio City Music
Hall for decades. It’s only a matter of time before the lights go
out on Broadway too and reappear in the southern sky.

Heck, the Empire State Building might decide that it, too, likes
the weather better down south and it might bring with her Lady
Liberty, who as a card-carrying member of the AARP is definitely
past her retirement age and might like to take a permanent dip in
the Gulf of Mexico.

It’s the way of the world guys; you can’t fight it. Every
contract is always being renegotiated and every man is only about
as faithful as his options (and there are a lot of options of what
to do with $5 million).

But George Steinbrenner (or Georgie Porgie, as his mother and
most Mets fans call him) will bounce back. He always does.

But it has to hurt his pride a bit by getting beaten at his own
game. It would be kind of like Star Jones getting beaten in a
pie-eating contest.