The Clemens/McNamee Steroids Hearing

The hearing was pathetic, really. McNamee did not endear himself to anyone. He came across as the low-life slime-ball he is. Yet, low-life slime-balls have a way of telling the truth when their necks are on the line. It’s an honored tradition among defendants turned government witness.

Clemens, on the other hand, wants us to see him as the new Forrest Gump - a naive, innocent individual caught in the midst of others’ wrong-doings and foibles. Clemens would have us believe that those dearest and closest to him - his wife and his best friend - were being injected with HGH by his personal trainer while all along Roger just kept innocently pumping iron and jogging, wrenching Cy Young Awards from his aging body the way Forrest Gump pulled injured comrades out of a Vietnam marsh. It’s a tall tale and one that, I believe, he’ll have to make stick to federal prosecutors.

The Never Ever Ending Clemens Steroids Saga

The soap opera gets worse: Congresspeople pander to Clemens; Clemens' team may have tried to influence their nanny’s testimony; Debbie Clemens received HGH shots from McNamee without her husband’s knowledge. All-in-all, I still believe McNamee more than Clemens. Like OJ, Clemens will say til his dying day that he never took steroids, even if sent to prison for lying about it.

To believe Clemens you have to believe the following:

That he received lidocaine and b-12 shots from McNamee which were administered in the wrong area;
That his wife secretly received HGH shots from McNamee;
That Andy Pettite received HGH shots from McNamee, but not Clemens, even though McNamee was Clemens’ personal trainer, not Pettite’s;
That Andy Pettite has a poor memory and a hearing problem.

Even More on the Clemens Saga

I don’t think McNamee started out with a vendetta. I think he cleverly, and surprisingly, maintained that evidence “just in case”. Why would he? Because other than Debbie Clemens, he of all people probably knows Clemens better than anyone else. Remember, Clemens deceived thousands of fans years ago when he said he was retiring. He soaked in the adulation and the gifts during his farewell tour, never even remotely suggesting he might reconsider. Then he reneged on his retirement and took a bundle of money to play in Houston. A major reason he gave for his change of mind was that he did it only because he remained close to home. Then his definition of home expanded years later when he signed a contract to play againfor the Yankees, a second deception as far as retirement went.

And let’s not forget his responses to beaning Mike Piazza and then throwing a piece of a bat at him in the 2000 World Series. He was never forthright in his answers. If he though the bat was a ball, why didn’t he “throw it” to first, instead of at Piazza?

The guy is cut from the same cloth as Pete Rose: his narrow needs are all that matters, and if the truth gets in the way, the truth loses.

McNamee has seen Clemens’ character up close and personal, and probably sensed that Clemens would not back him up if trouble ever surfaced. How could a personal trainer win against a larger-than-life persona like Clemens?

Well, the “just-in-case” scenario has appeared, and, as I mentioned in my last post, it seems that Andy Pettite’s testimony will, indeed, corroborate McNamee’s accounts and end Clemens’ charade. He has one last chance tomorrow to make amends. Don’t hold your breath.