Collector Stories | Roger Clemens Super Collector

Exploring Jay Carrara’s Impressive Clemens Collection

Date: Aug 4, 2025

Author: Greg Bates

Topics: Cards and Culture, Collector Stories

Length: 855 Words

Reading Time: ~5 Minutes

When Roger Clemens recorded his first 20-strikeout outing in a nine-inning game in 1986, the phenom hurler attracted the attention of baseball fans young and old. Clemens’ signature performance marked the specific moment he became Jay Carrara’s favorite player.

Growing up in Rhode Island, Carrara lived geographically the same distance away from Boston and New York, so he had the choice of becoming a Red Sox or Yankees fan. His family followed the boys from Beantown.

“When Clemens threw his 20-strikeout game, I was like 8,” Carrara says. “You knew about stuff like that as a little kid. You’ve got uncles who played baseball and a couple who went down to Florida back in the ’70s and tried to make the Red Sox squads. They were into baseball and they told you about all this stuff.”

Carrara — who on the baseball diamond tried to emulate his favorite player, wearing jersey No. 21 — collected cards with some of his younger cousins. Clemens was always the focal point, but Carrara was also a big fan of Will Clark and Mike Greenwell. After a while, Carrara and his cousins had amassed so many cards that they didn’t know what to do with them all.

“One of my cousins was a big Ripken fan, and my buddy up the street was a big Mattingly fan and a Yankees fan,” Carrara says. “So, at some point in the early ’90s, we all just kind of looked at each other and said, how about you take all of these because you do Ripken, you take all these because you do Mattingly, and we’ll give you all of your Clemens and we’ll go that way. That’s just what we did.”

Growing the Clemens Collection

Carrara already had a healthy Clemens in the early 2000s when he decided to put up some bookshelves in his apartment and display his cards. From that point, things only grew, with online auctions and forums allowing him to easily get his hands on cards he was looking for. Eventually, Carrara added up his Clemens’ and hit 3,000 unique cards about a year and a half ago.

“My focus is getting my collection as far up the unique count as I can, within reason, and still maintaining a family and all of my responsibilities because I’m not independently wealthy and I work every day,” the 46-year-old says. “I try to get interesting, rarer stuff.” Clemens played for four teams during his MLB career, but his cards from Boston are the most important to Carrara.

As of the end of March, the collector was up to 3,817 unique Clemens’ cards. His next goal is within reach: 4,000. According to Trading Card Database, there have been almost 20,000 Clemens cards produced in the 41 years since he made his MLB debut. Of the nearly 4,000 cards Carrara owns, he figures he has fewer than 20 that are unlicensed from his post-playing days.

“I focus essentially on Topps stuff when it comes to the post-2008 playing days stuff,” Carrara says.

Carrara’s Favorite Roger Clemens Cards

Carrara has a list of his best Topps and Bowman Clemens cards. At the top is the 1993 Topps Finest Refractor.

“It’s awesome looking,” Carrara says. “It was the first Refractor, and there’s only 240 of them or whatever there were.”

A few more that really stand out to Carrara are the 1996 Topps Laser, which is a die cut that features a flame, the 1997 Bowman Chrome International, which has a parallel with an American flag in the background, and the 2017 Topps Luminaries, which highlights Clemens’ 4,672 career strikeouts and is numbered to 15 with his autograph and the inscription, “The Rocket.”

Most recently, Carrara’s focus with his Clemens collection has been picking up jersey match cards. He tracked down the card numbered 21/25 out of the 2024 Gilded Collection.

Displaying Thousands of Clemens Cards

Carrara has dedicated a great deal of time to making sure his Clemens cards are displayed nicely in his home office. He has his work computer set up on one wall, with the rest of the space filled with shelving and countertop displays of cards and memorabilia.

“I probably have 1,800 of my 3,800 cards out on display, and the rest are in binders,” Carrara says. “You’d be amazed how much real estate that takes up.”

Carrara and a buddy came up with the idea to name each display section using a municipality theme. The sign “Welcome to CyTown” brings collectors in. Then there’s “Jersey # Junction,” which is a corner that holds Carrara’s 130 serial-matched, jersey number cards; “Autograph Avenue,” housing all the autographed cards; “Die Cut Drive,” featuring a bunch of cool die cuts; “Refractor Row,” with different Refractor cards; and “One-of-One Way,” where all 18 of Carrara’s one-of-ones live.

“I set my display up to really show what my collection focuses on,” Carrara says. “There are guys with 5,000, 6,000, 7,000 cards. I don’t have that many, but I have an entire room dedicated to how I can have fun with it and display it.”