BASEBALL Big Unit, Clemens eye Yanks

By Bill MADDEN
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
NEW YORK -- Very quietly, Randy Johnson has told the Arizona Diamondbacks that he would waive his no-trade clause in order to pitch out his final years for a contender, most preferably the Yankees, the New York Daily News has learned.
And apparently, it is becoming a similar case with another 40-year-old future Hall of Fame member -- Roger Clemens -- in Houston.
"When Randy got his 4,000th strikeout the other night and still came up a 3-2 loser, it was a very frustrating experience for him, and that's what convinced him that maybe he should look toward going to a contender," a source familiar with Johnson's thinking told the Daily News on Thursday night. "It's the same thing with Clemens, who's pitching for a team that's going nowhere.
"Why do you think these two guys are pitching? Neither of them has anything to prove. They're going to the Hall of Fame. They don't need the money.
"At this point in their careers, all they want to do is to win, and in the case of both of them, the Yankees are their team of preference because they represent the best chance of going to the World Series for them."
This is the good news for the Yankees. The bad news is neither Arizona general partner Jerry Colangelo nor Astros owner Drayton McLane has revealed a willingness to trade his marquee pitcher, and neither of them has any great affection for George Steinbrenner.
Perhaps further thwarting the Yankees' efforts to land either Johnson or Clemens is the fact that other potential big-market suitors -- the Angels, Cubs and Dodgers -- have considerably more quality prospects for trade purposes than the Yankees.