There are professional athletes who become superstars, and others who maximize their dismal decision-making skills to become fallen stars.

Allow me to take this time to present Roger Clemens, a fallen-and-I-can’t-get up star.

Clemens’ fall from baseball icon to Letterman punchline, if put in front of a radar gun, would blow away any fastball ever delivered by The Rocket. We’re talking triple digits here. Bob Feller, J.R. Richard and Nolan Ryan in their prime all rolled into one.

Sunday, the seven-time Cy Young Award winner used a printed statement to The Houston Chronicle to apologize to family members and to the public for mistakes he’s made away from the baseball diamond.

OK, one problem. Well, several, actually.

Does typing a statement and e-mailing it to one’s hometown newspaper qualify as an actual apology? For someone who played the game with a guy’s guy machismo, a pitcher who would have gone high and tight with Ghandi in the batter’s box, it leans toward cowardly.

Having watched Clemens the player all those years, I expected him to hold a press conference inside a very, very large room, stand before the cameras and microphones and spill his guts. You know, show a human side. Be a man.

That’s not to say Clemens still couldn’t take this route because he could, and I hope he does.

You see, as someone in his mid-40s who is 3 1/2 months older than Clemens, it’s been easy for me to marvel from afar at the way Clemens kept himself in peak condition so that he could continue mowing down batters two decades his junior. Some even younger than that.

Whether or not you liked Clemens or the team he represented, once he reached his mid- and late-30s, every personal triumph became a victory for a whole bunch of us. Hard work, wisdom and what we thought was clean living were prevailing over youth, much like years ago in the NBA when a skyhook from an aging Kareem Abdul-Jabbar still couldn’t be stopped.

Now we come to find that Clemens, a married father of four boys who in recent weeks has been accused of extramarital affairs, isn’t perfect. Sadly, all signs point to him cheating off the field, but what about on it?

The aforementioned statement to The Houston Chronicle also served as Clemens’ platform to firmly deny use of performance-enhancing drugs during what was once thought to be a first-ballot Hall of Fame career.

Again, the words came via e-mail, unless Clemens actually took the time to go old-school and write the statement himself, drop it in an envelope and spring for the necessary postage.

Either way, it’s the easy way out, and I expected more from one of the few sports idols I have.

Make that had.