Prison Roger

The Roger Clemens saga has taken another turn. The news broke last night that Clemens' trainer, Brian McNamee, has physical evidence that will implicate Clemens. This is huge…not because it is another piece of evidence against Clemens and the accusation that he cheated, but because this now involves Congress and swearing under oath that you are telling the truth. Unless your name is Bill Clinton, you can’t sit for a deposition and lie. So, if McNamee is able to produce needles, vials and other things…then Clemens has lost more than his baseball reputation.

As Roger’s lawyers heard the accusations they shot back with this canned line,

“Brian McNamee is obviously a troubled man who is obsessed with doing everything possible to destroy Roger Clemens.”

Rule one in bad PR management (at least it is my rule number 1 of bad PR) attack the person, not the claim. This makes Clemens look even guiltier. Notice that the lawyers didn’t restate that Clemens had never used HGH or steroids they call McNamee a “mad man.” That may be true. McNamee might be a nutcase that just wants the limelight. He can be a mad man…but if has some needles that have some Clemens DNA on it…then Clemens will be rubbing some HGH on some big dude in prison…probably Prison Mike.

I want to believe Clemens…I want to think that he was one of the greatest pitchers ever to play the game. But if it is true that he did use HGH or steroids, lied about it to the public and Congress and engaged in character assassination, then he deserves to follow Pete Rose down the Baseball Walk of Shame.

THE Roger Clemens Has Spoken

Roger Clemens has sat down with good friend Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes and gave his first interview since his outing in the Mitchell Report. The entire interview will air Sunday on CBS (check your local listings) and my guess is that it is a softball interview. Clemens is a pretty smart guy; he knows that one bad interview can kill his already battered reputation. So what does he do, he calls a friend from 60 Minutes to interview him.

So far all that is reported about this interview is that Roger did in fact have his trainer inject him with something. The trainer says it was some HGH…Roger claims it was Vitamin B-12. I am not sure what exactly B-12 does for someone’s body, but I do know that a lot of baseball players have mentioned being injected with it. Why is it that baseball players feel a need to inject “vitamins” into their body when eating them could do away with the whole mystery of injections? I am pretty sure meat, eggs and dairy have B-12 and there is no need for needles to get in into your body. Just teeth and a mouth.

My favorite part of this hard hitting interview however is when Mike Wallace follows up with this:

--Clemens calls the accusation "ridiculous" and says he "never" used any banned substances.

--"Swear?" asks Wallace.

--"[I] swear," says Clemens.

You can’t learn that type of questioning in any school…except for maybe the Mike Wallace Kick Ass School of Journalism (MWKASofJ). Hopefully he got the pinky swear in there too…because that is unbreakable. My guess is that this slumber party interview is not going to do anything for Roger. He will still be perceived as taking steroids and will probably have a difficult time getting into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot.

Peter Gammons (who I am pretty sure never took steroids) wrote a pretty good blog entry about Clemens, Maddux and Glavine. (B1 sent the link in) It shows that Glavine and Maddux are two old guys that reinvented their pitches and not their bodies and how they have had better careers since Clemens allegedly started rubbing on “the clear.”

I will watch the interview…hopefully Roger and Mike will have more than a love fest, but I am not holding my breath. I think it is time that we hold people accountable for their actions and if Roger did use steroids, then he deserves as much shame and scorn that Barry Bonds has received.