The Reelz Pitch: Russell Crowe for The Roger Clemens Story
Posted 12.20.07 by reelz
The baseball world was rocked last week by the Mitchell Report and its statement of the obvious shocking revelation: that star pitcher Roger Clemens allegedly abused steroids throughout his Hall of Fame career.
We here at Reelz.com feel that the story of Clemens' epic rise to greatness and subsequent fall from grace has all the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster or, at the very least, a solid made-for-TV movie, and we know the perfect person for the role: Oscar winner Russell Crowe.
Aside from the remarkable physical resemblance, the Gladiator star has a number of other qualities in common with the disgraced seven-time Cy Young Award winner. Clemens is a proud Texas native, while Crowe hails from Australia -- essentially the Longhorn State's southern hemisphere equivalent. An avid rugby fanatic who recently purchased a majority stake in the South Sydney Rabbitohs of Australia's National Rugby League, Crowe boasts impeccable meathead jock credentials, and anyone who's seen Cinderella Man (all seven of you) knows that he's more than capable of realistically mimicking Clemens' legendary (and likely chemically-enhanced) athleticism.
And like Clemens, the mercurial Aussie is known to possess a nasty temper that occasionally impels him to throw things at people. Clemens once tossed a bat at Mike Piazza in game two of the 2000 World Series; Crowe heaved a telephone at a concierge during a tirade at New York's Mercer Hotel in 2005. Allegedly.
Crowe as Clemens: it's a homerun -- an upper-deck, growth hormone-fueled homerun. Make it happen, Hollywood!