Despite legal troubles and rumors of steroid use, Rogers Clemens nearly attended Friday afternoon's 100th anniversary celebration at Fenway Park. However, the right-hander had family obligations in Texas. Former Red Sox pitcher Bruce Hurst said he connected with Clemens via text message before the ceremony. "I told him I felt bad," Hurst said. "It was a lesser day because of that, if there was such thing as a lesser day." Hurst could only have envisioned Clemens receiving one reaction from the crowd. "I'm going to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and say they would have cheered him wildly," Hurst said. "And they should. I know all the things that happened, but for the time that he was here in Boston, name one pitcher better, that did more for this franchise, who changed the face of what it meant to be a Red Sox pitcher, than Roger Clemens. "He made me better. We went from being afterthoughts and laughingstocks - 'Oh, you pitch for the Red Sox, you must be terrible,' - to where he gave us all credibility. "It was about one great night (in 1986) when he struck out 20. It changed all of us. It changed the public's and the league's and even our own organization's perception of us as players and pitchers."