Rather than hang this latest return on his son's finger injury, Roger Clemens ought to come clean for once and tell the truth. He ought to say he planned this mid-season return all along.

  William Roger Clemens just might be the game's greatest pitcher since Nolan Ryan. He's certainly our Lone Star State's most dominant pitcher since Nolan... and he's second in strikeouts to Nolan too.

  But Roger Clemens is half the man than Nolan Ryan is.... or less than that. He's a compulsive me-first egomaniac. He paints all these family and teammate pictures for the public to digest but he misleads listeners just the same way that he deceives hitters.

  Pitching is all about misleading a hitter into falling for a split-second optical illusion that is not there. Roger is great at it. But he treats too many people in his life that way, too.

  A lot of people were totally led down the wrong path to think Roger's retirement had to do with the death of his mother Bess last September 14. I don't think so. But he certainly tried to convince people of it.

  Then there's last December when the Astros did not offer arbitration and Roger decided to get his feelings all so openly wounded. Right... whatever you say, Roger.

  The Astros did what they had to do by the Dec. 7 arbitration deadline because Clemens had deteriorated into damaged goods. The Astros would have been absolutely crazy to have jumped out and offered Roger $18 million or more last December.

  Roger also had a way of misleading the public about his health. As the new year arrived, Clemens threw out the idea that he would have to wait and see if his body physically would "allow" him to pitch again.

  Yet when mid-January arrived, there was Clemens playing golf at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic in Palm Springs. His playing partner, famed Olympics hockey goalie Mike Eruzione, made a big putt and Roger's back is killing him so much that he picks the 220-pound Eruzione into the air because his partner made a putt. 

  So much for how injured his back really was.

  What it all boiled down was ego and money... and more money... and more money. The Rangers, Yankees and Red Sox never had a chance, partly because of Roger's loyalty to family but also because the Rangers, Yankees and Red Sox play in the real league.

  The American League is the real league. Look at the All-Star Game results and the World Series results. The American League is clearly superior. Perhaps the Astros still have a chance to return to the World Series. Big deal. That means they have a chance to go back and lose four in a row again.

  Roger told the audience on Wednesday that "a piece of his heart" was in all those other cities. That's nuts. Clemens had those other franchises in the mix for bargaining leverage. They would help drive up the price.

  The whole thing played out much as Clemens likely figured it would four months ago. You see, Roger has a great deal of pride. He not only wants to maintain his high standard of excellence, but he doesn't want to allow the sport to make him look bad.

He still wants to ride the bull rather than have the bull spear him in the rear end.

  Clemens was 9-4 with a 1.46 ERA at the end of last July. His record went to 13-8 with a 1.87 by season's end. The bull began hurting Roger in the season's last two months.

  Baseball's experts began to assess that Roger ran out of gas by the end of July, after he gave the first four months of last season all he could give it. Actually, Clemens admitted as much at Wednesday's press conference.

  "The stress that I endured last year was how I had to be so stingy in April and May," he said. "I knew that would catch up with me in August and September. I had to shut down a lot of workouts early in the (2005) season because I was spent pretty much in the my first seven or eight starts last year."

  It very well may be that injuries again take their toll in 2006. After all, Roger is not getting any younger. But the fact remains: Clemens had four fantastic months in him last year before his lower back problems flared up.

If Roger has four strong months in him this year, that stretch could occur from late June to late October.

  That's what might happen. That's what Drayton McLane, Tim Purpura and Clemens hope will happen. The chance that it might happen certainly was too appealing for the Astros to ignore or bypass.

  So Clemens has misled the public about a few things. And I think he misled Astros fans one last time at Wednesday's press conference when he inflated what a great team we have here.

  "Again, it's about winning," he said. "It kept coming down to the guys I went to battle with last year. This is the same team as last year, if not better. We haven't had the best of breaks go our way yet this year. Hopefully that will turn around."

  Whatever you say, Roger. But these Astros are pretty mediocre right now.... just like a lot of your off-season false advertising.

  Tom Halliburton is a Port Arthur News sports columnist