A PITCHER is always alone on the island, alone on the mound. It is his game to win or lose. He is the one who winds up with a “W” or “L” next to his name.

On a rainy night at Yankee Stadium, Roger Clemens again went for his 300th win last night, his fourth try at history.

Clemens, though, is never really alone on that mound. A piece of some of the great pitchers of the past are with him, and, as always, his family is there in spirit to support him.

“Roger is a very caring person,” Joe Torre explained before the game.

Clemens cares deeply about his family. He cares deeply about his teammates.

“He’s helped a lot of the young guys around here,” Torre said.

The traveling show has dwindled a bit and Clemens’ older sister Janet was there last night representing her four other brothers and sisters.

The anticipation and excitement of the night could be heard in her voice hours before the first pitch when Clemens took on the hard-hitting Cardinals, the first meeting of the two teams since the 1964 World Series.

“We’re all just hoping this is the night,” Janet told me of her brother’s date with Friday-the- 13th destiny. “And we’re hoping it doesn’t rain.”

Then came the typical Clemens’ humor, a trademark of the family that had to survive some difficult years growing up, but survived by sticking together, a bond of love that will never break.

“I told Roger in spring training that there were some ballparks I had not seen yet, that I wanted to visit this year,” Janet said with a laugh, “but I didn’t expect to see them all in the same month.

Yes, it’s been that kind of 300 battle for Clemens. This final part of the journey started May 26 at the Stadium against the Red Sox, an 8-4 loss to his old team.

Then came the trip to Detroit, which everyone surely thought would be the place where the 300th win would take place.

Clemens owned a 7-1 lead that day, but somehow the bungling Yankees fell apart and allowed the Tigers to tie the game. The date with 300 destiny had to wait. Clemens tried again in Chicago on June 7, an electric day of baseball. He left with a 1-0 lead, then Eric Karros left the ballpark against Juan Acevedo, who soon left the Yankees.

Which brought Clemens to last night, back to the Stadium.

The major league journey, though, began in 1984, when the young right-hander posted a 9-4 record. Back then, 300 victories was only a dream. Clemens would spend 13 years in Boston and touch many lives in many ways.

Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy was at the Stadium last night reporting for his newspaper. He was there for the entire Boston ride and has some incredible memories of Clemens. Not all of them occurred on the field.

Shaughnessy is the first to admit that his relationship with Clemens has had its ups and downs.

“Mostly downs at that point,” Shaughnessy said of the 1993 season. That year the struggling Clemens went 11-14. In November of that year, Shaughnessy’s eight-year-old daughter was diagnosed with leukemia.

“One of the few days she was home this giant box arrived from UPS,” Shaughnessy recalled. “The driver saw the name Shaughnessy and the return address, R. Clemens, Katy, Tex., and thought the thing was ticking.

“We could barely get it through the door. We opened it up and it was a giant white teddy bear with an autographed ball wrapped around inside it and it said, ‘Get well soon.

Kate Shaughnessy called the bear Clementine.

Kate graduated high school just last week. She still has that darling of a bear. And last night she was hoping that Roger Clemens would get his 300th victory.