One thing I never understood is why Cito Gaston couldn’t find another managing gig after leaving the Toronto Blue Jays in 1997. After all, he lead the team to four AL East pennants and back-to-back World Series wins. So it seemed strange that as teams recycled mediocre manager after mediocre manager, he had to wait until the Blue Jays rehired him during last season to get another shot.

But while I might have a lot of respect for Gaston, apparently Roger Clemens didn’t. The new book “The Rocket That Fell To Earth” details how Clemens basically threw Gaston under the bus and convinced the Blue Jays to hire Tim Johnson to replace him (and we all know how well that went). And the feeling is apparently mutual, as Gaston used some choice words to describe to the TORONTO STAR exactly how he felt about Clemens:

“He’s an a—–e himself. A complete a—–e,” Gaston said with a chuckle. “And I’ll say that loud, right in his face. It was all about him. Ain’t about nobody else but him.”

Gaston didn’t know specifics of what Clemens might have done to get him fired, but did say that Clemens once asked him “if he wanted to keep his job as manager or lose it“, and also openly questioned his managing decisions to the team. That is, when he was actually in the dugout:

“When he’s pitching, everyone’s in the dugout pulling for him, but when he’s not pitching he’s not in the dugout,” Gaston said. “I didn’t feel like he supported his teammates as much as he wanted support.”

In fact, Gaston’s only regret about his time with Clemens is that he didn’t confront him, because “one of us would have had an ass whuppin’ that day. It might have been me, but he still would have known I was there.”

Personally, I’m glad Gaston didn’t get into it physically with Clemens: I saw that episode of “Streets of San Francisco” with Arnold Schwarzenegger where he goes on a roid-rage killing spree, so I know how this ends: Clemens clutching Gaston’s lifeless body as he clutches the top of the CN Tower, swatting at planes shooting at him.