For a lot of the years Mel Stottlemyre served as pitching coach of the New York Yankees, he made it easy for everybody to forget he was in treatment for a life-threatening illness. Because he never mentioned it, and if not for the changing texture of his hair, he never gave off any clues about the cancer. Stottlemyre died Sunday almost two decades after his initial diagnosis.
"I got word today," Roger Clemens said over the phone Monday evening. Clemens won the sixth of his seven Cy Young Awards while pitching for the Yankees and Stottlemyre, who himself had pitched 11 seasons for the Yankees in the 1960s and '70s.