NYT: Players Who Couldn’t Get to the Game on Time

Jim Furyk’s dead cellphone battery inspired the Times to compile a list of athletes who’ve been notoriously tardy in the past, including some from the diamond:

In 1982, Braves pitcher Pascual Perez got lost on I-285 while trying to find Fulton County Stadium. He circled the city three times and eventually ran out of gas. He missed his start, but the Braves, mired in a 2-19 slump, then went 13-2 and won the National League West.
Roger Clemens, Boston Red Sox pitcher, posed with a game ball at Fenway Park in Boston in 1986.Elise Amendola/Associated Press Roger Clemens.

Unless he misremembered, Roger Clemens was en route to Fenway Park to pitch against the Mariners on April 29, 1986, when his car got stuck in traffic on Storrow Drive. Clemens said he went to the trunk to get his sneakers, prepared to run the two miles to the park. A cop, thinking the car had broken down, stopped, recognized Clemens and blue-lighted him to Fenway. He made it in the nick of time, had to persuade Manager John McNamara to let him pitch, then struck out a major league-record 20 batters.

The Mets’ Ramon Castro showed up late to a series finale in San Diego two years ago because he said he overslept. He said he looked at the Mets’ pocket schedule and saw a 4:05 p.m. start time and figured he could sleep late. But it was 4:05 Eastern. The team had been on the West Coast for a week.

More in the article itself.