It looks like a long shot now, but if Roger Clemens ever makes it to Cooperstown, he wants a Red Sox cap on his plaque because it’s the team he identifies most with over his career.

“I spent 13 years here, I worked hard man, so this is.. it’s where I got my start,” Clemens said. “I got my nickname here, the kids today still call me Rocket more than they do Roger so it pretty cool. At home, I probably have more Red Sox stuff than I do any other club I played for…

“I don’t think you have any control over [picking the cap for Cooperstown]… but obviously [my choice] would be Boston. I spent most of my time here.”


But the seven-time Cy Young award winner said Thursday that getting into the national Hall of Fame isn’t something that concerns him right now.

“As far as the baseball Hall of Fame, the one in Cooperstown, I had zero control over that,” Clemens said before his induction into the Red Sox Hall of Fame on Thursday. “So if that happens, it’d be great. I have my own thoughts on it, but I’ll save that for one day, hopefully, when I can get that and write that on paper, too, so there’s some good thoughts about that.”

Clemens — who hasn’t come close to the 75 percent vote required to gain election to the Hall in the past two years — was asked if the honor was something that was important to him.

“I don’t know that it’s that important,” Clemens said. “It’s not going to change me as a person. I tell people that we’ve got bits and pieces of me there now. We go visit those people and they’re great to us, but it’s not something I sit up and worry about every day. I’m far too busy to worry about something like that.”


Clemens would be lock for the Hall of Famer if he hadn’t been in the national spotlight for years defending charges that he used performance-enhancing drugs.

“I know what I did in my career and I did it right. And I can’t control what people think or people that don’t look at facts. It looks like a long shot now, but if Roger Clemens ever makes it to Cooperstown, he wants a Red Sox cap on his plaque. So I can’t have no control over that.”

Clemens pitched 13 years for the Red Sox and won as many games in a Boston uniform as Cy Young. But in 1996, Clemens had a bitter split with the club, signed with the Blue Jays, and two years later joined the rival New York Yankees.

Clemens was asked if it was fair that a pitcher with 354 career wins gets shut out of Cooperstown.

“I have no control whether it’s fair or not,” Clemens said.

When he was asked if he would have done anything differently in the past 15 years, Clemens replied, “Nothing.”

Clemens will be honored at Fenway before Thursday night’s game against the Houston Astros, along with Pedro Martinez and Nomar Garciaparra, and longtime radio broadcaster Joe Castiglione.