ESPN Is Trying to Kill Barry Bonds

Last night sitting at the Nashville Preds’ game (which we lost in embarrassing fashion to Chicago…6-1) I was going to check the Vanderbilt ladies basketball score (someone sitting with us was very interested in the score for some reason). As I hit ESPN up on my celly the headline blazed “BONDS FAILED TEST”. I didn’t get too excited because this could have been like a reading test or a how not to be an arrogant ass test. However after reading the article, the report had said that federal prosecutors had filed briefs in their case against Barry that claimed he failed a drug test in November of 2001 just about a month after breaking the single season homerun record. This is important because it would basically prove the perjury case against Barry and he would go to the pokey for a while. B1, who was sitting next to me, did his customary gloat when celebrities/athletes look like they are going to jail.

But, if we have learned something from the media, it is you can’t always trust the first story. It turns out that the Feds had a case of the “fat fingers” and instead of saying that he failed a test in November of 2000 (which has already been reported and filed in court papers) they put November 2001, which would be huge news. By no means am I a fan of Barry Bonds. He should go the way of Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe. Not even be allowed to buy a ticket to visit Cooperstown. However, this is pretty crappy. I don’t think the Feds did this on purpose…except if they actually do have fat fingers than they should loose the weight, you know, adopt a healthy lifestyle. They should issue an apology to Barry. He has gone through a lot, and all of it caused by him…but this should not have happened. However, even without a failed drug test in November of 2001, I am pretty sure that he will still go to jail for perjury and not play baseball again. It is a shame this didn’t happen last year and he wouldn’t have broken Hank’s record.

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.