Clemens vs. McNamee

Former Red Sox ace Roger Clemens is scheduled to testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform today and even before he raises his right hand he appears to be in trouble.

His former teammate, Andy Pettitte, has already admitted to using HGH (supplied by his and Clemens' former trainer, Brian McNamee) and now comes word that Pettitte has told Congress that Clemens admitted to him that he (the Rocket) took HGH. Clemens said Pettitte is mistaken in recalling the conversation.

Pettitte was supposed to testify with Clemens but was told by the Committee that such testimony wasn't needed. I haven't been able to find the reason why this decision was made.

Once again it comes down to he said-he said ... barring a last-minute change of heart, Clemens is presumably going to testify under oath that he didn't take HGH or any other steroid, despite the assertions made by Pettitte and McNamee. Meanwhile, McNamee will also testify under oath that Clemens did, in fact, use steroids.

So, where does this leave Clemens? One can keep speculating, but until we hear exactly what Clemens says and, perhaps more importantly, how he says it, it's difficult to say. (I'm reminded to Bill Clinton's famous, "It depends on what the definition of 'is' is.")

I was talking with a friend about this whole mess and said that I found it hard to believe that someone as (supposedly) smart as Clemens would go this far if he thought there was any evidence to support McNamee's claim.

"No it's not," my friend said. "Guys like Clemens, competitors their entire lives, just can't let things go away. Clemens probably sees this as another sort of competition and wants to be the winner. Maybe it's the steroids that are clouding his judgment."

I admitted that I never really thought of it that way and my friend made a good point. Either way, Clemens isn't going to come out of this unscathed ... it's how badly burned he will be that has yet to be determined.