Roger Clemens eager to ‘teach’ during NBC’s Yankees-Red Sox broadcast

Roger Clemens is calling Yankees-Red Sox on NBC this weekend, and he didn’t need much, if any, convincing.

Speaking ahead of his Sunday Night Baseball debut, Clemens revealed that the opportunity came together through his agent, Sandy Montag, who connected him with NBC after the network took note of his previous broadcast work. Clemens said once he found out he’d be working alongside Bob Costas and Jason Benetti, the answer was easy.

“Once I knew that I had some wonderful professionals — this is what they do for a living — I was fired up,” he said.

As was previously reported, he joins Benetti and Will Middlebrooks in the booth — Middlebrooks representing the Red Sox, Clemens the Yankees — marking his first appearance on the main Sunday Night Baseball telecast. It’s not his first broadcasting experience; he joined ESPN’s KayRod altcast alongside Barry Bonds in 2022, appeared on ESPN’s Opening Day coverage in 2023, and was brought in by NESN for a Red Sox broadcast in 2017, despite the complicated history Boston fans have with him.

NBC’s experiment with rotating booth analysts for Sunday Night Baseball has been met with mixed reviews so far. Securing a name like Clemens, who has made headlines recently as President Donald Trump lobbies for his inclusion in the Baseball Hall of Fame, certainly adds intrigue to what would otherwise be a run-of-the-mill regular-season game (albeit one between the two biggest rivals in the sport). On the other hand, the lack of consistency can lend itself to a disjointed feel in the booth that isn’t necessarily conducive to a polished broadcast.

It’s hard to fault NBC for securing Clemens, who said the network is already looking at a potential second appearance for him down the road.

Clemens also noted that what he’s most looking forward to is the chance to teach. He’s still in regular contact with his former catchers — his 300th win, his 20-strikeout game, a bobblehead day in Boston a few weeks ago all giving him reason to reconnect with the guys who caught him — and still fields calls from pitchers asking about his split-finger.

“To have the opportunity to be able to broadcast that, there might be a 12-, 13-, 14-, 15-year-old kid that we can bring some things to light,” he said, “or have them watching what a pitcher does on the mound that’s really good at what he does.”

He learned the same way, not from video, but from 8-by-10 still photos of Nolan Ryan and Tom Seaver, two pitchers he still considers the ultimate power pitchers. While Carlos Rodón and Sonny Gray — Sunday’s scheduled starters — aren’t exactly Seaver and Ryan, the former sitting at 4-2 with a 3.70 ERA and the latter at 9-1 with a 2.95 ERA, Clemens will have plenty to offer up about them when Yankees-Red Sox airs on NBC for the first time since 1995.

“It’s Yankees-Red Sox,” Clemens said. “It doesn’t get any better than that.”