Article:Baseball Notebook; Catching up to Spring Training (2/19/08)

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Clemens and McNamee: Will the Real Liar Please Stand Up? Now that the hearings looking into the possible steroids use of Roger Clemens is over only one thing is clear: someone is lying. Now the real job begins as investigators will almost certainly try to unravel this mystery.

The evidence which Brian McNamee has is the key to proving Clemens is guilty of using performance enhancers. The question is how useful this evidence will be and if it is even bona fide evidence. It is very questionable why this evidence was saved by McNamee in the first place. With the reputation of McNamee it wouldn’t beyond him to plant this evidence in a way to lead investigators to the conclusion that Clemens did indeed use performance enhancers.

In my book Clemens has been too adamant in his denials of using drugs to be covering up anything. Why would he go on 60 Minutes if he knew that he had anything to hide? I am not defending Clemens and it may still be proven that he was a user but to spend millions on expensive defense lawyers knowing he was guilty just doesn’t make sense. Of course if anyone could afford these kind of legal bills it would be Clemens. Then he is also suing McNamee in a lawsuit showing he is more of a victim than a drug user. Not even Barry Bonds sued the authors of Game of Shadows over the content of their book but rather their right to make money from that book.

There are have been other cases of players vehemently denying using drugs then testing positively a few months later like Rafael Palmeiro. And then in the political arena we have had the spectacle of President Richard Nixon saying “ I am not a crook” when he was a crook of the first magnitude during the height of the Watergate scandal and President Bill Clinton stridently pointing his finger at the American public and saying “ I did not have sex with that woman” when the Starr Report proved otherwise.

After the hearings we had the usual parade of congressmen and lawyers appearing before a phalanx of microphones. At least one congressman made a statement saying who he thought was the more credible witness. How could he make a statement like that when the hearings did nothing to prove anyone was telling the truth and only raised more questions than they answered?

The coming months will tell whether these hearings were an exercise in futility and were a massive waste of the taxpayer’s money or were a first step in sorting out this sordid mess so that we will know beyond a doubt whether Clemens deceived baseball fans into thinking he was a victim and that he was guilty as charged by the Mitchell Report or was an innocent victim of a former trainer in McNamee who had a vendetta against Clemens and would go to any lengths to exact revenge against his former employer.

Even if Clemens is proven to be innocent his legacy will never be the same but he should find admittance into the Baseball Hall of Fame easier than Mark McGwire who only wanted to talk about the future when he was in Washington. At least Clemens was forthcoming in his testimony. Whether that testimony was truthful or not remains to be seen. In my estimation Andy Pettitte should be revered for his statement previous to the hearings. He apparently told the truth at the expense of possible losing a friend in Clemens and that statement will be investigated thoroughly and could lead to his friend facing perjury charges since they have differing memories of the same incident.

Now that the hearings are over it is time for the real liar to stand up and save us from having to wait for months to find out the truth.