Roger Clemens Is Effin Ridiculous

[yyz28]

And flyer, yyz28, should congress just let it go and do nothing about it?

YES!!! EXACTLY! Congress should be doing the PEOPLE's business, not regulating a stupid game that has ZERO impact on the quality of life of the people of this country. Players jacking themselves up in baseball is NOT an issue the federal government should be wasting their time on. Hold on, let me read the Constitution real quick...

...after a very close examination of Article I, I couldn't, for the life of me find any of the following words - Baseball. Steriods. Sports. Drugs. Trainer. Human Growth Hormone. ...one would have to conclude since the Legislative branch's powers are enumerated (quite well, might I add) in this Article that Congress really doesn't have any business in the middle of this.

Let me be clear. The Congress should be working on making this country safter, enacting policy to protect and strenghen our economy and working to fix the various social programs in trouble. Congress has enough trouble with it's own ethics - there is a saying about he who lives in a glass house?

I'm sorry, Rick. I just don't care about this issue, and I don't think the federal government has the money nor the time to be telling baseball players what they can and can't inject into their bodies. If baseball wants to regulate itself, they can make rules. If the players union doesn't want to protect it's players and refuses drug testing as any part of contratcs, and the players are OK with this, who the hell does congress think it is to tell them otherwise? How is this an issue that congress should be involved in? We have a DEA already, right?

[SCREAMING EAGLE-66]

---I have no idea whether Clements used "chemicals" or not. I just know that the case they have against him is rather questionable.. the main witness against him has no credibility and has lied on many occasions as he admitted.. so now we are to believe he is telling the truth? Once he is caught lying on some things, how can you believe anything he says. [ what I told my kids as they grew up ]

---MLB is largely at fault anyway. For years there was no rules against it the use of steroids or HGH. How can anyone be convicted for use when it was not illegal then. They seem to being going after people who just weren't being honest, not actually the use. it did no doubt effect the game SOME especially among batters who were dropping fly balls a few feet short of the "fence".... these now became home-runs. For those who weren't getting close it did nothing to help them. It does not help them field or catch the ball better nor does it help them make contact with the ball either as batters. As for pitching, it does not make them throw a better curve-ball or make better decisions. I even doubt that most can even throw much harder.... after all Randy Johnson, or even Nolan Ryan are/were fastball pitchers and they were not all that large or unusually strong...in fact throwng fastballs are more about quickness than strength. What use did do was allow them to recover from injury faster. In the case of Pettite, he has gone through several injuries and his using it to heal up (not to gain a competive advantage) doesn't seem to be a big problem to me. It can be used as a medicine just as many other things can.

---I DO NOT support its use but I do see selective use for injured players to heal quicker, but not to gain a competive edge. That would involve very short-term use. These are not drugs that have no medical benefit or purpose. Football again is quite different ... for most positions strength means a lot, not so much in baseball except getting those few extra feet to get the ball over the fence for those who often get close. If excellent physical condition is the key to success in baseball then how did Babe Ruth and Micky Mantle and some others do as well as they did... They were is awful shape usually and abused their bodies as well.

---Belicheat is far worse... he absolutely was trying to gain an illegal edge by filming, and IT WAS AGAINST THE RULES.. The steroids are now but weren't in the beginning.

---I also agree, Congress has a more lot important things to do... Looks as if they want "air time" to show the folks back home they are working. ( prima-donas? )

.

Edited February 14, 2008 by SCREAMING EAGLE-66

[greenminer]

Aren't we fighting a war?

Isn't social security bankrupt?

Isn't the border still wide open?

Aren't our social programs out of control?

Isn't spending run-amuck?

Isn't the Economly sagging?

Aren't we having massive problems getting the energy resources this country needs?

...then why, for the love of GOD, is congress screwing around REGULATING A #&$@ING GAME?!?!?! It's a bloody game. NOTHING MORE. NO, LISTEN! IT IS A GAME!

Do you feel the same way about Congress getting involved in the BCS?

[yyz28]

Do you feel the same way about Congress getting involved in the BCS?

ABSOLUTELY. I think the BCS sucks donkeyballs, but Congress has WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY more important stuff to be working on.

[KRAM1]

Congress is acting like star struck fans.....but, what do you expect from that bunch? They can't get along long enough to pass any meaningful legislation unless it has their own persona "earmarks" all over it. Shameful...just shameful the whole thing! Get a life Congress and get back to work on real issues confronting this great nation of ours!

[FirefightnRick]

Thie was one of many committees who oversee numerous subjects year round. The fact that it's attempt to try to open eyes concerning a drug problem that relates to the youth of this country makes it that much more viable. Plus, it's no different than the committee that investigates insider trading or antitrust concerns by the private sector. It's just that this one had that celebrity flare to it. And consdering it was THE front page of the Startlegram tells me I'm not alone in the interest factor.

Rick

[yyz28]

Thie was one of many committees who oversee numerous subjects year round. The fact that it's attempt to try to open eyes concerning a drug problem that relates to the youth of this country makes it that much more viable. Plus, it's no different than the committee that investigates insider trading or antitrust concerns by the private sector. It's just that this one had that celebrity flare to it. And consdering it was THE front page of the Startlegram tells me I'm not alone in the interest factor.

Rick

I hear ya man...

...but the amount of interest people have doesn't change the fact that Congress shouldn't be in the middle of it.

...Congress isn't here to do a Public Service "Don't Do 'Roids" announcement. ...and I reject the notion that screwing with the internal workings of professional baseball is the same as investigating insider trading. The Constitution DOES grant Congress Commerce oversight, not Professional Sports oversight.

I'm not arguing one side over another, because I could give a crap one way or the other. But again, we have MASSIVE probems in this country, and it is a WASTE of TAXPAYER MONEY and TIME for Congress to be having hearings on Sterioids in baseball, or any other sport for that matter.

[greenminer]

I hear ya man...

...but the amount of interest people have doesn't change the fact that Congress shouldn't be in the middle of it.

...Congress isn't here to do a Public Service "Don't Do 'Roids" announcement. ...and I reject the notion that screwing with the internal workings of professional baseball is the same as investigating insider trading. The Constitution DOES grant Congress Commerce oversight, not Professional Sports oversight.

I'm not arguing one side over another, because I could give a crap one way or the other. But again, we have MASSIVE probems in this country, and it is a WASTE of TAXPAYER MONEY and TIME for Congress to be having hearings on Sterioids in baseball, or any other sport for that matter.

Is it such a stretch to believe that the BCS, with all of the money involved, is a factor in our economy? Bowl cities get millions in tourist $$ every year, plus the same teams are getting the pot year after year.

This might be going over the top, but I'd say sports in general is an entertainment industry and thus a part of the market/economy. To watch certain parties become so powerful and exclusive is almost robbery.

The market is slumping as is, hints of a recession are there. Maybe Congress shouldn't just ignore sports and let it continue to get worse.

_{I don't really have much of an argument for the Clemens fiasco.}

[yyz28]

Congress should stick to the issues that the Constitution gives them some power over. Again, if the rest of our government and country was a near-eutopia, I wouldn't have much of a problem with this, but based on the huge number of problems facing this nation day in and day out, I just don't see the most powerful legislative body in the world spenind time debating the finer points of... ...BASEBALL!!! (or Football for that matter...)

[Quoner]

Congress should stick to the issues that the Constitution gives them some power over. Again, if the rest of our government and country was a near-eutopia, I wouldn't have much of a problem with this, but based on the huge number of problems facing this nation day in and day out, I just don't see the most powerful legislative body in the world spenind time debating the finer points of... ...BASEBALL!!! (or Football for that matter...)

Pro sports thrive because of the anti-trust exemption Congress gives them. That is how they justify weaseling there way in - just like when Clinton ended the strike that put the steroids era into motion. It's such a fun, sexy cycle. Plus, it's fun to bring Clinton and politics into things.

[FirefightnRick]

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/sto...mp;sportCat=mlb

Pettitte wasn't in room, but his words carried much of the day

By Gene Wojciechowski

ESPN.com

(Archive)

Updated: February 14, 2008, 1:17 AM ET

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They were separated by about six feet. And by their starkly different and sometimes evolving versions of the truth.

Roger Clemens and one of his accusers, Brian McNamee, sat at the same table inside a Capitol Hill hearing room Wednesday, but they agreed on virtually nothing. Not on allegations of steroid and human growth hormone use by Clemens. Not on allegations of a key meeting at a pool party. Not on allegations of blood-stained jeans caused by those injections.

But there was one other accuser in that room. He wasn't physically there, but his words were read and repeated, even shown on a TV screen for all to see, especially for Clemens to see. They were the words of a trusted friend, former teammate and workout partner. And at times, those words left bruise marks on Clemens' credibility and his particular recollection of the truth.

Andy Pettitte is scheduled to report to the New York Yankees' spring training camp no later than Monday. He will do so as a man who either answered to his own conscience and to the god he prays to, or as a man who suffers from profound memory loss as it relates to conversations with Clemens.

Friend against friend. Teammate against teammate. That was the essence of what happened during Wednesday's historic, sometimes inane and occasionally extraordianary hearing conducted by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Distill those four hours and 40 minutes of time into its purest form and you're left with a single shotglass of truth:

Pettitte, in absentia, called Clemens, in so many words, a liar. In return, Clemens politely called Pettitte, in so many words, a nitwit who was mistaken about past conversations between them regarding performance-enhancing substances.

As major league ballplayers make their way to spring training camps this week, they would be wise to remember the lasting image of that confrontation. There was Clemens, struggling to reconcile the testimony not only of his former friend and personal trainer, McNamee, but of the testimony of Pettitte, a man whom Clemens says was his friend before, during and now after these most recent congressional proceedings.

In many ways Pettitte became the tipping point of these hearings. We didn't hear his voice or see his face (he was, for reasons still not entirely logical, excused from having to appear Wednesday), but we learned through his 103-page deposition that maybe it's Clemens who is suffering acute memory loss.

[+] EnlargeAP Photo/Tony Gutierrez

Andy Pettitte's deposition contradicted comments made by Roger Clemens on Wednesday.

Pettitte said that Clemens told him he had used HGH. He also said that McNamee had told him that Clemens had used steroids.

"He misheard ... misremembers," said Clemens.

Congressional lawyers repeatedly asked Pettitte during the deposition if his statements regarding Clemens and PED use were accurate, and Pettitte repeatedly confirmed those statements. There was no ambiguity in what he had heard and what he had remembered.

"Two things you ought to remember: Good people, whether it's Sen. [George] Mitchell, or whether it's Andy, can make mistakes," said Clemens' lawyer Rusty Hardin. "Andy heard one thing, Roger believes and knows another thing. And everybody else goes from there."

So, in review, when Pettitte says Clemens was on the juice, it's a case of a good guy who simply misheard and made an innocent mistake. But when McNamee alleges the same thing -- granted, in much greater volume and detail -- Team Clemens tries to kneecap the guy's credibility.

Fair enough. That's what you'd expect them to do.

But Clemens is still asking us to take a leap of faith longer than a first-base foul line. He wants, actually demands, that we believe everything he says, but to disregard anything McNamee says. In short: Clemens, good. McNamee, bad.

And McNamee is bad. His past is deeply pockmarked. His testimony to investigators has evolved, sometimes disturbingly so.

But despite the efforts of the monumentally fawning Rep. William Clay, D-Mo., who used part of his precious minutes to ask what uniform Clemens would wear for enshrinement in the National Baseball Hall of Fame (not so fast there, Sparky), or Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., who ordained that Clemens was going to heaven, there remain some McNamee landmines that still haven't been completely disarmed.

McNamee testified that he injected former major leaguer and former client Chuck Knoblauch with HGH. Knoblauch said McNamee told the truth.

McNamee testified that former client Pettitte used HGH. Pettitte said McNamee told the truth.

McNamee testified that he injected Clemens' wife, Debbie, with HGH. They weren't happy about it -- and they disputed the specific circumstances -- but Clemens and his wife confirmed that, yes, the pitcher's wife consented to an injection.

McNamee testified that he saw Clemens at a poolside barbecue at Jose Canseco's house in June 1998. It was there that McNamee alleges Clemens first discussed with Canseco the possibility of using steroids.

Clemens, Canseco and Canseco's wife, among others, disputed the testimony, but Clemens' nanny at the time appears to have confirmed portions of McNamee's version.

It could be entirely possible that both Clemens and McNamee are bad. Perhaps it isn't a case of who is telling more truths, but who is telling fewer lies.

"I don't know what to believe," Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., told McNamee. "I know one thing that I don't believe, and that's you."

You could almost feel the sweat form at McNamee's armpits.

But it was no better for Clemens, whose credibility was questioned pointedly by several congressmen, including Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md. Near hearing's end, Cummings said to Clemens, "All I'm saying is, it's hard to believe, it's hard to believe you, sir. I hate to say that, you're one of my heroes, but it's hard to believe you."

It wasn't as difficult to believe Pettitte. He had already admitted to his own HGH use. He had received the Clemens seal of approval ("I believe Andy to be a very honest fella," said Clemens). And his depositions made it clear when it absolutely needed to be clear that he considered Clemens a PED user.

Clemens refuses to budge from his position of innocence. McNamee refuses to budge from his position of knowing accuser. But Pettitte's testimony had no predisposition, no agenda. His only motive, he said, was "to tell you the truth."

What will Pettitte's teammates think of him when he arrives at Legends Field in Tampa, Fla.? That he betrayed a friend, or that he did his moral duty? Has he violated the clubhouse code of silence, or done the game a service?

Clemens absolved Pettitte of any supposed wrongdoing, but that doesn't mean he believes him. This is what it's come to. This is the worst-case scenario for any player who still considers PEDs a viable option.

Friend against friend. A nationally televised congressional hearing. Humiliation. Blunt trauma to reputations. A committee chairman angrily slamming a gavel while telling a seven-time Cy Young winner, "Excuse me, but this is not your time to argue with me."

If these hearings don't serve as a deterrent to would-be cheaters, then they deserve what McNamee and Clemens received Wednesday: harsh lights, harsh questions.

This was the loudest wake-up call for ballplayers. Now we find out if they'll sleep through it again.

Gene Wojciechowski is the senior national columnist for ESPN.com. You can contact him at gene.wojciechowski@espn3.com.

[CaribbeanGreen]

What I enjoyed is how even the sides being taken in this pointless sideshow were partisan as hell... Blue congressmen generally pro-McNamee, Red pro-Clemens.

So, so silly.

Why single out Roger? Let's focus on where we should have been focusing a long time ago... Brady Anderson's sideburns.

[KRAM1]

Blue vs Red even in this???? Sorry, don't see it. The whole thing is a joke...now I read where RC may be offered immunity or something like that. Yep, let's see...a star player lies to Congress and then is offered immunity if he "comes clean". Pardon the pun on "coming clean" I am sure a "regular" Joe would get the same treatment....What a JOKE professional baseball has become!

[CaribbeanGreen]

Blue vs Red even in this???? Sorry, don't see it.

Really? Almost every article I've read (a couple on SI.com come to mind among others) indicates an overwhelming partisanship nature to the proceedings. I think it's kind of a given out there that that is how it went down, with maybe one or two occasional exceptions... what DOESN'T go down in a partisan manner these days, anyway?

[Green Gas]

Really? Almost every article I've read (a couple on SI.com come to mind among others) indicates an overwhelming partisanship nature to the proceedings. I think it's kind of a given out there that that is how it went down, with maybe one or two occasional exceptions... what DOESN'T go down in a partisan manner these days, anyway?

This can really give a guy the gassy trots, I mean what a waste of time for congress. They just need to make completely random drug testing mandatory in professional sports if they want the problem stopped. Otherwise leave it alone. The shit or get off the pot theory.