Was Roger Clemens lying today on Capitol Hill? The Congressional hearing took place today in which members of U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform listened to testimony from both the 7-time Cy Young award winner and his former friend and trainer, former police officer Brian McNamee. McNamee claims he gave Clemens banned substances in the form of anal injections. Clemens denies the claim.
Of course, Clemens is the pitcher in real life, not the catcher. He would have had to have been the catcher if McNamee is telling the truth this time. Who knows?
Unfortunately for Clemens, his very good friend - and generally acknowledged by all sides (baseball, Clemens, McNamee, Republicans, Democrats, camera crews and local coffee shops and pub owners) all-around good, honest fellow - Andy Pettitte, is now making claims that would make either a liar, a Saint, or a probable Alzheimer’s patient out of The Rocket. If not one of those, then it would make both Pettitte and McNamee out to be liars.
Now, McNamee is a universally acknowledged liar. Granted, we have all told lies. (Well, everyone except Jesus, as he was apparently perfect in every way except that hair-do.) However, McNamee has told lies under oath on multiple occasions, and been either caught up in his lies or so close to being caught up in his lies that he had a “change of heart” and decided to come [more] clean than before. In general, as earnest as he seems, we must take his testimony with a major league size grain of salt.
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Andy Pettitte, though, must be taken seriously, we are told. Why else would he volunteer to come forward and tell these politicians that he had, indeed, received anal injections of banned substances from Mr. McNamee himself? He, too, could have denied the allegations. Instead, he not only gave himself up to the gods of truth, he also implicated his good buddy Roger in what could turn out to be a perjury case for someone.
Pettitte felt that he had done something wrong and wanted to come clean about it. Jolly good for him, I say. Unfortunately, he was so compelling in his previous testimony that when he asked to be excused from today’s hearing, his request was granted, thus denying the public of the one other person who could have helped make this whole, sordid mess even tougher to figure out.
I listened to the whole thing this morning live on television, having lucked across the only excellent, unscripted program on TV today - until that new Tom Green show comes on later. While I personally don’t care whether The Rocket did steroids or HGH, or even MDMA or LSD for that matter, I did find listening to such a well-known public persona very interesting. Clemens perfectly imitated the trademark specific-topic-evasion tactics so well cultured and fine-tuned by the very people who were grilling him and McNamee.
I mean politicians, of course. Clemens, I believe, will make a great one someday. If he so chooses. Even if he does get found out to be a liar, he could still fall back on politics and go very far with it. What other line of work can you be found out to be a cheating, dishonest, backstabbing, self-serving liar and get a promotion for it, after all?
Not that I think these things about Clemens. Right now. Honestly, I don’t know what to think, so I reserve my right to be undecidedly hopeful. I want to believe him. I want it to come out that it was not a sports legend that millions of youngsters have looked up to over the years that was the liar here.
I don’t want to find out that Roger Clemens looked the game of baseball, its fans, that cute, witty Congresswoman from D.C. that we see sometimes on The Colbert Report who was a member of this hearing, the rest of the committee and, by association, the U.S. government, its people, and the rest of the free world (Except Finland. They, too, think baseball is boring, but have their own version of it, called, Pesapallo.), and bald-faced lied straight to them while under the gun.
I would much rather see the former policeman-turned drug dealer and dream destroyer be the bad guy, again, here.
I just don’t know. Clemens said all day how he was just too trusting of people and too forgiving. Maybe we were too trusting, too, I don’t know. One day, maybe the truth will be served.
Until then, I’ll wish we had a Yardstick for bullshit truth on FanYard.
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