CHICAGO - While piecing together Team USA, general manager Bob Watson must negotiate competing interests, those of the Olympic movement and the Major League Baseball franchises willing to loan out prospects this August.
The roster for the Beijing Games is expected to be revealed in July, and will exclude players who are on an active 25-man big-league roster. That would leave mid-to-high-level minor league prospects -- at least the ones who won't be needed or saved for a pennant race -- and perhaps a college pitcher with a power arm. One player who probably doesn't need to locate his passport: Roger Clemens.
"He's not on my radar screen," Watson, the former general manager of the Houston Astros and New York Yankees, said Tuesday during the U.S. Olympic Committee's media summit at the Palmer House Hilton. "Not because of his off-field issues (but) his last four or five outings in the big-league level - it was a real struggle for him physically.
"He took shots in his elbow and he had hamstring and groin issues...I would rather take (a) 28-year-old who's throwin' well and he's in good physical shape, even though he doesn't have the numbers and the credentials that Roger would have but I could depend on him. See once we go...there's no replacin' him and I don't want to play a man short."
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