ROGER Clemens is never going to wear Babe Ruth’s baseball cap.

There will be no monument erected to him behind the left-field fence in Yankee Stadium.

If he truly harbors a secret desire to someday be a sportswriter – hahahahaha! – odds are you will never find out about it.

When he goes into Cooperstown, as he will, it will be in a Red Sox uniform.

There isn’t going to be any Rocket Bar, not even of the high-protein, low-fat, super testoterone-laced version.

He is not conversant on the subject of Yankee Tradition, but then, Roger Clemens does not choose to be conversant on many subjects, at least in public.

He may be the biggest Yankee addition since Reggie Jackson, but the man they call The Rocket will be among the most private of New York superstars.

In terms of charisma, Roger is no Reggie. His public profile battles his ERA to see which can he can keep lower.

And in terms of public relations, Clemens is no David Cone. He certainly doesn’t want to be a sportswriter, but he might not mind eating one for breakfast.

All you need to know about the Instant Ace of the 1999 Yankee rotation is this: You will get to see him every five days. Period.

You will get to love him as a pitcher. Period. You will never get to know him as a man.

Introducing the Ace as Automaton, the Savior as Mercernary.

In this New Era of Yankee Pride, as embodied by Derek Jeter and Paul O’Neill and even the late, lamented Wells, Clemens comes to town as the ultimate Rent-a-Yank, a Bronx Bomber in uniform only.

In many ways, Clemens is a throwback to those grand old days of Early Steinbrenner, an established superstar imported for one reason.

Not to make friends, or put down roots in the community or steal the hearts of the fans.

Not to entertain the media, or hang out in biker bars, or make the rounds of radio programs.

To win ballgames.

They are the ultimate mutual-use society, Clemens and the Yankees.

Remember when Clemens said he would never play for the Yankees because he couldn’t imagine raising his family in New York?

Well, that was back in those heady days when he still believed he could reach his goals in Boston.

He is older and wiser now, more pragmatic, less emotional in his attachments to team or city.

These days, Clemens is using the Yankees in order to achieve the one honor that has eluded him in his extraordinary major league career, a World Series ring.

And the Yankees are using Clemens for precisely the same reason.

For a team that won 125 games last year and still has Cone, Andy Pettitte and Orlando Hernandez in the starting rotation, you could say adding Clemens was like adding floors to the top of the Empire State Building, but so what?

The sky is the limit for this team, and Clemens only helps them reach that much higher.

The thing is, enjoy watching him pitch this year and next, because that’s probably all you will get of him.

You’re never going to get to know Roger Clemens the way you got to know Wells, or the way you know Cone.

Come to think of it, neither will many of his teammates.

Throughout spring training, Clemens was the Phantom of the Clubhouse, invisible except on pitching days, always off somewhere “doing his running,” or lifting weights, or perfecting on his scowl.

He spends more time with his personal trainer than with the team trainer.

None of this makes Roger Clemens a bad guy, but understand that what the Yankees lost in character (Wells) they are making up for in consistency.

Whereas Wells had grown far too fond of cultivating and maintaining his own manufactured self-image, Clemens cares only about pitching.

Over the past 13 years, Clemens has won 20 or more games five times, 18 three times, 17 once. He has had just one losing season, and in a league in which pitchers who flirt with allowing four earned runs per game are considered Cy Young candidates, Clemens’ career ERA is 2.95.

He will be 37 in August, but unlike Wells, his waistline has yet to catch up with his age. He follows the fitness regimen of a linebacker, not a baseball player.

But while he may be the best pitcher ever to wear a Yankee uniform, he will not be the most beloved.

The rap that he has never been much of a team player has followed him from Boston to Toronto to The Bronx, but believe me, his teammates loved him every time he laid an opponent low with a knockdown pitch, and these very Yankees hated him when he drilled Jeter last year in a spring training game.

The Blue Jays did not weep when he left, and even when he was there, they used to talk openly about “Rule 21,” which said, basically, there’s a different set of rules for No. 21.

Not likely in The Bronx, where for the first time in his career, Clemens will not be the only superstar in the room.

He may well lead the Yankees to another World Series this year, or the Yankees may lead him there.

Either way, the New York Yankees will never be Roger Clemens’ team.

Rather, Roger Clemens will be a member, however temporary, of the New York Yankees.

Very much a marriage of the ’90s, based not on love, friendship or loyalty, but on dollars, sense and victories.