Wow ... just ... wow

I just read this story on espn.com and I still can't believe it.

I literally don't know what else to type, so I'll stop.

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.

The Clemens circus continues

So Roger Clemens and his former trainer, Brian McNamee, both have appeared before a House committee to argue their sides of this "did-Roger-take-steroids?" case.

He said-he said.

According to this story on espn.com, it's going to get very interesting next week when the two will appear at a public hearing (along with Clemens' former teammate, Andy Pettitte) at which they'll be under oath.

What amazes me about this week's developments is that McNamee's lawyers showed two pictures of syringes and other paraphernalia that they say are evidence of Clemens taking steroids.

Seriously?!? Pictures of this stuff and not of Clemens actually being injected is part of your evidence ... seriously?!?

Look, I've said it once and I'll say it again, I'm not here to defend Clemens. But, I have to say that I can't see why he would be fighting so hard against these allegations if they weren't true. I mean, he's not stupid and if he even thought a scintilla of evidence existed that could link him to steroid use, why would he be putting himself in the spotlight like this? It just doesn't make sense.

On the other side of the isle, though, is McNamee who (on the surface) doesn't seem to have anything to lose by pressing this case and therefore one could argue that he's not lying because of that very fact ... he doesn't have anything to lose so why would he be doing this?

Either way, if these two are under oath next week and stick to their stories, one of them is lying and, again, as I've said before, that's frowned upon just a bit by the Feds. The whole thing is just mind boggling.

Of course, the wild card here is Pettitte. I can't imagine that in the course of the hearing next week someone's not going to ask him if he ever saw Clemens get injected. His answer, or rather, the way he answers is going to be very telling. I see it going one of several ways:

• "No, I did not see him get injected."
  
• "If he ever was injected, I never saw it."
  
• "On the advice of Counsel, I plead the Fifth."

If Pettitte pleads the Fifth, that's as good as him saying Clemens took steroids, IMO. If his answers are in any way ambiguous and the panel can't get him to be more clear, then that's not going to look good for Rocket, either.

As a baseball fan, I'm still astounded by the fact that the man who could be considered the greatest pitcher in the history of the game may not be so if it's definitively proven that Clemens used steroids. Once a lock for the MLB HOF, Clemens' stats and accomplishments on the diamond may be but a footnote to his legacy ... as a steroid user.

The Clemens plot thickens

So, according to this story on espn.com, Roger Clemens is unlikely to get an immunity deal when he testifies before Congress next month on this whole steroid mess.

Now, this doesn't mean he won't get such a deal, but thus far, it doesn't look like he will.

IMO, this latest development lends some credibility to Clemens' declaration that he didn't use steroids. I mean, he's got to know full well the consequences of lying under oath (it's a little thing called jail) and if he raises his right hand before Congress without an immunity deal, that could very well be his way of saying that he didn't do anything illegal.

That being said, let's flash forward to post-Congressional hearing and some evidence surfaces that proves unequivocally that Clemens did use steroids. One could see him pleading ignorance that he didn't know there was more to the shot his trainer was giving him than vitamin B-12 and the painkiller lidocaine.

Hmmmm ... isn't that what Barry Bonds kinda did with the "clear and the cream" defense? As if Clemens, an avid trainer, really wouldn't know what was being injected into his body.

Man, this is going to just get better and better.

Clemens circus continues

So now former Red Sox pitcher and once-a-shoe-in-for-the-Baseball-Hall-of-Fame-but-now-maybe-not Roger Clemens is firing back with both guns about these allegations of steroid use made by his former trainer to the Mitchell Commission.

To catch up on the latest, check this out on ESPN.com.

Clemens agreed, as well as his former trainer, Brian McNamee, to appear before Congress to testify under oath about the issue. Now, as y'all probably know, this is serious stuff because if you lie under oath in front of Congress and are caught, it's a federal offense and you go to jail ... no questions asked. So both of these guys, who have completely opposite stories, have said they're going to testify, which means one of them will be lying.

Now, Clemens has said he’s not going to take the Fifth Amendment, but we’ll see. Is McNamee going to take the Fifth, then, or is he going to lie? If he takes the Fifth, does that mean he's backing down from the information he gave to the Mitchell Commission?

What a mess.

And Clemens isn't helping his cause by appearing in interviews and press conferences, IMO. As a friend said to me last night, "Me doth think Roger protest too much." I agree.

The saddest part of all this, though, is that if this steroid stuff isn’t true, it’ll always hang over Clemens because, if nothing else, he’s right when he says that too often it’s “guilty until proven innocent” in this country.

Gonna be a fun time on Capital Hill ... wonder is Mark McGuire is around to give an tips.

MLB's steroids era

So, the Mitchell report on steroid use in Major League Baseball is out ... now baseball fans need to figure out what to make of it. If you want to read all 417 pages of the report, you can view it here.

The numbers are staggering: 88 players named in the report, 62 of which were named by one former NY Mets clubhouse attendant; of those on the list, 32 players were active in 2007; 32 players on the list are All-Stars; 29 are pitchers; 16 players bought steroids even after the Feds raided offices in Florida and New York, and nine of the players were named in the BALCO investigation. Amazing.

If you're following this story at all, then you doubt have seen the media frenzy about those players listed in the report as steroid users, two of the biggest names being NY Yankees' pitchers Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte.

Before I go any further, I should note that espn.com's Jayson Stark wrote an excellent piece that puts the report and its conclusions in perspective when he says that many of the allegations against the players are based on circumstantial evidence, especially the "evidence" against Clemens.

Even before I read Stark's piece this morning, I was thinking about this report while driving into work and I wondered what evidence exactly Mitchell and his investigators dug up when compiling their list. After reading more about the report this morning, it appears that at least some of his information is based on circumstantial evidence. Hoo boy.

Look, I'm not naive enough to think MLB players didn't "juice" in the past, there's written evidence in the form of orders and canceled checks to show that players did try to gain an advantage through steroids. And, frankly, I'm not the biggest fan of Roger Clemens, either. I admire his accomplishments as a pitcher and I don't think this report should in any way impact his chances of getting into the MLB Hall of Fame ... I just wish he conducted himself differently and didn't act like a prima donna. I mean, demanding a huge contract for only a few months work?!? He didn't even play a full season last year ... c'mon!

All that being said, I wonder how MLB is going to move on from this. In his press conference yesterday, MLB Comish Bud Selig said they are going to deal with punishing active players "on a case-by-case basis." What?!? Seriously, MLB isn't going to have a uniform way of dealing with players? Yeah, that'll work. You can just hear Major League Baseball Players Association union chief Donald Fehr lining up his lawyers from here. If Selig, et. al., really do go through with their "case-by-case" plan, this is going to get a lot worse before it even begins to get better.

The question is, will it ever get better? Clemens is already vehemently denying the charges, and why shouldn't he? Even if he is found to not have actually juiced at all, will anyone look at him or his accomplishments the same way? If he does get a plaque in Cooperstown, will any true fan ever be able to look at it the same way they would have had Clemens not been accused of using steroids?

And, my feelings about the NY Yankees aside, can you really look at their streak of World Series titles in the late 1990s in the same way? If you look at the list, you'll see it includes 22 current or former Yankees. Wow. Should those WS titles have an asterisk next to them? I don't think so ... too many other players were juicing during that time in baseball, so why should the Yankees be singled out?

Still, it's amazing that that many players were named from one organization. Does that mean that the NY Yankees as an organization sanctioned and/or condoned using steriods? Who knows.

And, of course, there are those on message boards (especially in NY markets) howling that there is a notable lack of Red Sox players named in the report and that Mitchell sits on the Red Sox Board of Directors. Coincidence? Well, take this for what it's worth because I'm a card-carrying member of Red Sox Nation, but I really don't think there's a link ... I think it would be incredibly stupid of Mitchell to leave Red Sox players out of his report because of his affiliation with the team. Maybe I'm giving him too much credit, but that's my opinion.

And it's not as if the Red Sox aren't represented in the list, there are former Red Sox players named, too ... most notably Mo Vaughn and, of course, Clemens (Vaughn alledgedly took steriods when he was with the Mets).

It's going to be an interesting remainder of the off season and I think we're going to hear about this report for a very long time. MLB baseball, "the national pastime" ...

Good lord, what a mess.

Black Thursday for MLB

Well, former Senator George Mitchell has released his report on steroid use in Major League Baseball.

Thus far, no current Red Sox players have been listed as active users in the report. Former players Greg Gagne (who just signed a one year, $10 million deal with the Brewers ... LOL), Roger Clemens and Mo Vaugh have been listed, however.

One gets the feeling this is going to get a lot more ugly before it gets better.

Here's hoping, though, that this report leads to better testing and an overall cleaner and more honest MLB playing field.