CY III? : Boston’s Clemens Not Only Is Going for Three in a Row, He Is Shooting for Cooperstown : By MIKE PENNER

It was the eve of his first visit to Boston’s Fenway Park, but Chili Davis couldn’t care less about the Green Monster in left or the short porch in right or any of the odd angles that can make outfield play, well, so creative. Quaintness isn’t Davis’ business. “I’m into new things,” he says. “I’m 28 years old. I don’t like any ballpark that’s older than me.”

No, Davis was intrigued only by one of Fenway’s part-time residents, the building’s claim to fame since the summer of ’86. A career National Leaguer until the last few months, Davis was curious about this American League phenomenon called Roger Clemens and whether this burgeoning legend was truly all it’s cracked up to be.

“I want to see if he throws harder than Gooden,” he said.

And who better to take that test than Chili Davis, Angel thrill-seeker? We all know Davis can strike out with the best of them. Dwight Gooden got him in the other league, many times, but a true connoisseur always seeks to sample new sensations.

So Davis stepped in and took his cuts against Clemens on the evening of May 20. He emerged 1 for 4, with a double in his first at-bat, followed, of course, by 2 strikeouts.

The prognosis?

“The only difference is that Dwight is black and this guy’s white,” Davis proclaimed. “I don’t think either one throws as hard as Nolan Ryan--and nobody throws as hard as (Montreal’s) Floyd Youmans, who just shoots BBs up there, but doesn’t know where the . . . it’s going. Dwight and Roger, they both know what they’re doing.”

Davis, who watched Cleveland’s Greg Swindell two-hit the Angels in early May and could only scoff, “I’m not impressed,” wanted to keep talking about Clemens.

“You know, I don’t compliment pitchers much, but I’ve got to give it to him,” he said. “I hit him hard the first time, but he came back the second time around and it was ‘OK, I’m going to get you.’ I liked his poise out there. Roger keeps coming right at you.”

And coming. And coming. After winning 20 games and Cy Young Awards in each of his last two seasons, Clemens enters tonight’s series opener against the Angels in Anaheim with a 7-2 record and a 1.80 earned-run average for 1988. He has struck out 107 batters in 95 innings. He has already pitched 5 shutouts.

He seems, according to various witnesses, just to be getting better.

After Clemens three-hit the Milwaukee Brewers last month, Boston Red Sox pitching coach Bill Fischer told reporters: “He’s pitching so great, it’s scary. You’re seeing history in front of your eyes. Twenty years from now, you’ll be saying, ‘I was there.’ ”

And sometimes, history is all you’ll see. Said Milwaukee’s Glenn Braggs after the same game: “I saw him pretty good, but I didn’t see him very long. The guy’s throwing 96 miles an hour and he’s putting it on the black. It’s good, I guess, because he’s not wild. Thank God he’s not wild.”

Clemens, too, believes he has improved, and cites three reasons: maturation (he’s now 25); added strength (he spent the winter bulking up the leg muscles that launch his crackling fastball), and new-found peace of mind.

Last year, remember, began in controversy for Clemens, who held out through all of spring training before signing a two-year contract just before opening day--and got off to a 4-6 start. This year, Clemens pitched through all of spring training--and the results are evident on pitching mounds across the American League.

“Basically, I had spring training this year and I didn’t have anybody hassling me, telling you what you’re worth, talking about the Cy Young jinx,” Clemens said. “I was just able to go out and play hard.

“I’m the type of person who understands the business part (of baseball) but really couldn’t care less about it. I feel if I do my job, it’ll all take care of itself. Of course, in ‘86, it did that, but in ‘87, it did not take care of itself.

“The contractual stuff kept me out of spring training, and I was trying to get myself ready pitching against college kids and high school kids. That didn’t get me ready to face hitters like George Bell and George Brett. I got beat early in ’87 often by making just one bad pitch. I was 4-6 and I lost five of them because of just one or two pitches.”

The lack of spring fine-tuning cost Clemens until June, when he began a roll that resulted in a 16-4 record the rest of the way.

“I won’t forget what it cost me last year. I won’t forget because of what they did to me,” Clemens said. “If I’m the best pitcher in the league, or in the top five, I should be paid like them. Out of 24 players on every team, there are five or six guys who are your ‘foundation players’--players you should almost bend over backwards to take care of.

“Wally Joyner’s a foundation player for the Angels. He should be taken care of. Right now, he must be thinking, ‘What’s going on?’ That’s the way it was with me.”

Along with regaining his pitching groove, Clemens said it took him a couple months in 1987 before he could clear his mind--and, as he puts it, “never look back.”

Clemens: “I turned it on and ended up OK. It was just OK because the team didn’t finish well. The only thing positive about it was the Cy Young. I beat the jinx.”

You know the jinx, the strange spell that overwhelmed such recent Cy Young Award winners as Pete Vuckovich, LaMarr Hoyt, Willie Hernandez and Bret Saberhagen as soon as they cleared mantle space in their dens.

“Everybody said I couldn’t do it,” Clemens said. “They kept telling me, ‘Everybody has a brutal year after winning the Cy Young.”

Clemens became the first AL pitcher to win back-to-back Cy Young Awards since Jim Palmer in the mid-1970s and now stands a chance to go where no man has ever gone before.

Three straight.

Clemens admits he thinks about it, admits it has become a motivation for him for the summer ahead.

“If I win another Cy Young this year, that’ll be doing something no one has ever done before. That’s a real fact,” Clemens said. “And if I win three, who knows after that? They (the Red Sox) might want four.

“To me, the Cy Young just makes it easier in the off-season to get up and run. It makes you work harder. It shows you that the work is paying off.”

Clemens has also begun working hard in the public relations department. An introverted and often difficult interview in 1986 and ‘87, Clemens now has a smile, a ready handshake and many words waiting for reporters, some of whom vote on such things as the Cy Young Award.

“Wade (Boggs) can win a batting title on his own, just by what he does on the field,” Clemens said. “But writers vote on the Cy Young Award. I have to prove to the writers that I’m the most dominant pitcher of the year.”

In Clemens’ words: “I’ve learned what it takes.” Which is why he now speaks more freely with the press. Which is why he handled Dave Stewart’s recent griping about his 1987 Cy Young snub with this sort of diplomacy: “He just wants a little more recognition, that’s what he was saying. . . . Maybe he should’ve placed second. He won 20 games. It’s tough when you have to rely on votes.”

Clemens wants votes for more than the Cy Young. He already has his eyes cast toward Cooperstown.

“If you’re not playing right now to achieve the highest level, which is the Hall of Fame, then you shouldn’t be playing,” he says. “You should try to be the best ever at your position. If not, you’re cheating yourself and thinking only about the money aspect of the game.”

Clemens is started on the proper track. Fischer, who previously served as pitching coach to Tom Seaver for five years, knows he has happened onto something special again.

“This guy’s got better ability than Tom,” Fischer said. “He’s got a better breaking ball and his fastball is as good or better.

“But Seaver pitched for 20 years. We’ll have to wait and see when Clemens is 40 years old. You don’t know how a president will be judged until years later. Same with pitchers.

“Clemens is 25 years old and he’s won two Cy Youngs and one (league) MVP. The only thing he hasn’t done is pitch a no-hitter and win a World Series game. A lot of ‘em never do that--even the great ones. If he stays healthy and pitches till he’s 40, we’ll be looking at a lot of records.”

And a final word from Chili Davis, that noted critic of fine major league pitching:

“He can be on my staff any day.”