Father's Day Comes Early.

AMID THE green expanse of outfield in an empty ballpark, as a train whistle fades in the distance, a father and son play catch. The baseball--it, too, whistles--connects them, as it does every father, even those who don't have seven Cy Young Awards and 4,502 strikeouts, and every son, even those who are not minor leaguers. Last Friday in Applebee's Park, the home field of the Class A Lexington (Ky.) Legends, Roger Clemens, the legendary 43-year-old righthander, and Koby Clemens, his 19-year-old son and a Legends third baseman, were connected by the literal give-and-take of this American ritual and, Rockwell be damned, some serious, let-'er-rip, in-your-face trash talking.

"Man, I'm starting to taste breakfast again," Roger says. "You?"

"Nope, I'm fine," Koby says.

"Yeah, must be nice to be young."

"Yep. Not like you. Mr. 3,000. You look like Bernie Mac, the old guy trying to make a comeback."

"Yeah, we'll see whose tongue is hanging out."

"And that green suit? What was up with that?"

Koby still can't get over the green suit. One of those what-was-I-thinking choices, preserved by the magic of videotape. The evening before, Roger and Koby had been stretching together on the floor of the tiny clubhouse in Lexington--where, on Tuesday, Roger was scheduled to begin a three-start minor league tour in preparation for his return to the Houston Astros--while ESPN showed a retrospective of the veteran's 22-year career.

"I want to see this," said Koby. Then he echoed the announcer saying, "The Rocket's red glare!"

"Yeah, red glare. You'll find out about that in about 20 minutes, when you get in the [batting] cage."

One clip showed Roger pitching in 1986, the year Koby was born.

"That was the last calm meal I had," said Roger. "Then you came along. You never sat still."

The narrator mentioned how Dan Duquette, then the Red Sox general manager, let Roger leave Boston as a free agent after the 1996 season because he thought Roger was entering "the twilight of his career."

"Twilight?" Koby retorted. "Right. He has more Cy Youngs after that than before."

Duquette, on the tape, mentioned that Roger had a losing record that year.

"Yeah," Roger said sarcastically, "it had nothing to do with Dan's fantasy league team he put together, a softball team."

The green suit, fairly glowing, popped up in a clip of Roger accepting a Cy Young. Koby howled.

"What is up with that? What are you wearing?"

"That is stylin'."

A few minutes later, the father rose, grabbed his equipment bag and said, "All right, kiddo. Let's go."

THERE WERE many reasons why Clemens could not, for a third straight season, follow through on his plans to retire. There is the money, of course: In return for making, at most, 18 regular-season starts he will be paid about $12.3 million, the prorated portion of a $22,000,022 full-season deal (the latter figure a tribute to his uniform number as well as a testament to how badly the Astros, Red Sox, Texas Rangers and New York Yankees all wanted him). It's the highest full-season salary in baseball this year and the most ever for a pitcher.

"That's all Randy Hendricks," Clemens says of one of his agents. "He loves that stuff. I didn't even know about it. If people say it's about the money, yeah, right, as if that's what I need. I could be out playing on the 10 best golf courses in the country right now. [Money] is not it."

Says one executive of a team in the bidding, "Everybody was prepared to go to $22 million, at least. It wasn't about the money." The Red Sox, for instance, wanted Clemens so badly they basically told him he could pitch whenever he wanted, floating plans for him to pitch a full year, a half year and just about anything in between, including one proposal in which he would pitch only on Sundays, as some aging stars did a half century ago.

There was his major-league-leading 1.87 ERA last season, which convinced him he could still perform at a high level as a power pitcher--though, as evidenced by his hamstring injury in the World Series, perhaps not for six or seven months.

There was the convenience of pitching for his hometown team, with permission to sometimes leave the club in between starts to watch Koby play minor league ball or his three younger sons compete in their sports. (The Yankees' team policy prohibits such a freedom.)

There was the carrot of another postseason, though Houston, even with Clemens being an obvious upgrade over rookie Fernando Nieve beginning with his scheduled return on June 22, was 27-30 at week's end, 8 1/2 games behind St. Louis and trailing seven teams in the wild-card race. (The Cardinals suddenly seemed much more vulnerable last Saturday, after first baseman Albert Pujols, who had been on pace for records of 74 home runs and 191 RBIs, suffered a strained right oblique muscle while chasing down a pop-up. The injury is expected to keep him sidelined for three to six weeks.)

But maybe the biggest reason why Clemens was pitching again could be found in that Legends clubhouse, where the name tags on the lockers are strips of masking tape, where the bulletin board includes the South Atlantic League Hotel Behavior Policy, where soft drinks must be purchased from a vending machine and where a handwritten sign reminds players NO HAIRCUTS OR DIRTY CLEATS IN BATHROOM. Last Friday, Clemens, soaked in sweat mid-workout, stood for one becalmed moment in the tiny trainer's room to ponder that simple question: Why?

"I guess …" he said, pausing to think and wipe his face with a towel, "I guess it's in my blood. It's what I do.

"I was really torn. By day I'd push my body hard and feel good about it. And by night I'd lay there awake in bed and think, There's no way. That night when we did the deal, I couldn't sleep. Just thinking about going through all this again. So many people helped me to get to that point. My trainers, agents, family, teammates … well, now it's all on me."

As the father sweated, so, too, did the son next to him. Koby was "the wild card" in his decision to return, Roger says, and not just because they would be teammates for a week in Lexington. Koby dislocated his left pinky sliding headfirst into first base in late April and went to the family's suburban home in Houston for his rehabilitation. Roger suddenly had a workout partner. His training intensified. His body--Roger always talks about his body in that detached way--responded.

Competition, to be sure, fuels both father and son. Last Thursday in Lexington, for instance, Roger stood on the mound in the twilight--the real twilight this time, the sun low enough to light his wide face under the brim of his Legends cap. Koby, at bat, stood in the shadows. Then Roger threw the baseball with such force that his grunt echoed off the seats of the empty ballpark. The pitch, as he says, had "some hair on it" and broke Koby's bat, the second one to die such a death. That was the end of batting practice.

"You know the first thing that I'm buying with the money?" Roger would say later. "An ice machine. It takes four hours after a game for my body to recover. I come home and pack my body in ice a second time: back, knee, shoulder, legs. I don't sit in a chair. I have to sit on the floor. The night I agreed to do this again? That's what I thought about."

Soon Roger Clemens, who turns 44 in August, again will sit on the floor packed in ice, and his body will remind him why he still pitches. For in that familiar fatigue and soreness, there is comfort too.

PHOTO (COLOR): HEATING UP Three weeks away from the majors, Clemens estimated that he was throwing in the low 90s in Lexington.

PHOTO (COLOR): FUN AND GAMES For seven days with the Legends, Roger and Koby weren't just frolicking father and son--they were teammates.

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By Tom Verducci