Potential Hall of Fame pitchers overshadowed by game's offensive emphasis: numbers put up by hurlers such as Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux get tossed aside for home run hitters.(Interview)

METS PITCHER TOM GLAVINE once made a commercial in the which the punch line was "chicks dig the longball."

Turns out, they aren't the only ones.

The home run was getting unprecedented attention from the nationally televised Home Run Derby, which kicked off All-Star festivities for the gathering of the 14 living members of baseball's 500-homer club--three of whom were selected to the National League's starting lineup for the first time in 75 All-Star Games.

Overlooked in all that, however, was the fact four pitchers voted to play in last July's mid-summer classic--Roger Clemens, Tom Glavine and Randy Johnson of the National League and Curt Schilling of the American League--are potential Hall of Famers. And their achievements might be greater than those of the hitters.

One of them, Clemens, had 322 wins, while Chicago's Greg Maddux, who didn't even make the All-Star team, had 299 through games of August 1. That's a total reached in baseball's modern era just 14 times--or six times fewer than a batter has hit 500 homers.

Clemens and Johnson both have more than 4,000 strikeouts--something only two other pitchers can claim--while they have combined to win 11 Cy Young Awards.

Yet, no one has proposed staging a Strikeout Derby just yet.