Face it, we’re hypocrites, just like the guys we root for. Here’s why:

When McGwire was called to testify, we crucified him for saying nothing. We wanted to hear (what we thought would be) the truth, or at least something, anything. Hasn’t been heard from since.

When Palmiero wagged his finger in Congress’ face, we cheered. When he got caught testing positive a few weeks later, we skewered him. Hasn’t been heard from since.

When Giambi was nailed thru leaked testimony, he sweated his way thru a pseudo-apology, without ever saying “steroids” or “HGH”, only that he was sorry for doing “that stuff“. Hasn’t been the same player since, oft-injured, broken down.

When Bonds was outted in the Balco mess, we boo’d (except those in SF). He was lying (we believe). He’s a bad guy (hard to really argue that). He did it not to get healthy, or remain in the game. He was already a man with HOF credentials but he wanted to go higher. How dare he? He hasn’t gone away, chosing to thumb his nose at everything, including the indictment this off-season. He faces jail time on perjury charges. He will not go gently into that dark night.

When Clemens was outted, he launched (pardon the rocket pun) a major offensive attack. Like Bonds, he was already a HOF-caliber player who allegedly/reportedly used to ascend past the pinnacle of the sport into the most elite ever. He didn’t admit it like Pettitte, probably because he either didn’t do it (I doubt this) or he’s trying to persuade the public. Or maybe, as McNamee mentioned, he actually believes his own story in spite of the truth.

As the 60 Minutes interview draws to a close, Clemens, who will repeat his denials in a news conference the next day, discusses the possibility of taking a lie detector test. “I think he’s the one guy who could probably beat the test,” McNamee opines. “He might actually believe that he’s telling the truth.”

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I never heard McNamee say “Roger, you DIDN’T do it”, or “Yes, you did do it, Roger.”

I heard McNamee sound regretful as hell. But I never heard him say, clearly and without question, that he (Roger) didn’t do it.

I did hear the case for Clemens improve, however.

(of course, good old Rusty just came on and said the same thing)

The interview just ended. Some quick thoughts (free-thought portion of our program):

• Besides Wallace’s face/lips scaring me and I know I’ll have nightmares from them, Clemens said a lot of “didn’t do it”. I know a few attorneys who might have liked to hear more as a defense than that, but I can’t figure out how to prove a negative.
• Roger challenged whomever supplied him with the PEDs to step forward (sounds like OJ wanting to find his wife’s murderer, if you ask me)
• I’m not sure what else he could have said since it’s one man’s word vs. another’s.
• He looked justifiably angry, as he should. He lost, even if he eventually “wins” somehow, he’s irretrievably lost the faith of many.
• The early comments about him “deserving” the benefit of the doubt were silly and show how some athletes lose touch with reality.
• Re: Not speaking with Mitchell, I would imagine that Mitchell told him that there is some pretty damning evidence and would he like to come in to defend his case prior to publishing? Hanging it on counsel is a cop-out, IMO.
• I’m not a pro in body language translation but Clemens seemed to divert his eyes at key moments. Could be the magic of editing, but it looked, I dunno, strange.
• He could have said “yes, I will sit for a lie detector test” rather than question it’s accuracy, knowing he never would really sit.
• Bringing Vioxx into this was silly; using the parallel of “healthy/not healthy” fell on deaf ears. Yes, it was probably to lay groundwork in the event of future health issues so he can deflect to Vioxx and away from PEDs (if had he done them, of course. *wink*)
• Clemens’ mentioning the things he did for McNamee did one thing for me: It made Clemens look, to me, hurt that this “nobody” didn’t go to the wall for him, like Greg Anderson has done for Bonds.

I guess what I took from this interview is that we will never know. I pretty much assume at this point that these guys, all ballplayers, have taken something at one point or another. The motives might be vastly different. Some to heal faster, some to make it in the first place, some to stay playing, others for immortality. Is one excuse more acceptable? Do you “forgive” Pettitte and Brian Roberts and Rick Ankiel who supposedly took HGH to heal from possibly career threatening injuries to get back to their team faster? Do you condemn the Clemens and Bonds of the game who were already at the pinnacle but wanted to go higher?

Is there ANY name in all of baseball in the last 20 years, if implacated in a Mitchell-like expose down the road, that would flat out surprise you? There isn’t one for me that would floor me. Would I be disappointed if a Jeter or Gwynn or Maddux or Hoffman or Ripken got “named”… you betchya. But nothing would surprise me.

Oh, and by the way, pitchers and catchers report in about 5 weeks. Play ball!

Roger: Hello?

McNamee: Hey there, it’s me.

Roger: (coldly) What’s up?

McNamee: Oh don’t be that way. We can’t let the press ruin what we once had.

Roger: I guess. It was special, wasn’t it?

McNamee: Yeppers. I’m sorry that meanie George Mitchell used the Feds to strong arm me into telling the truth to them.

Roger: It’s OK. I would have flipped on you, my wife and every kid I have that I named with the letter K as soon as I knew I could save my own hide.

McNamee: I know.

Roger: So now what?

McNamee: Well that depends on how bad you trashed me in the “60 Minutes” fluff job that’s airing tonite.

Roger: Not too bad. I used the ‘deny deny deny’ approach and I hope everyone buys the the “B12 + Lidocaine” excuse. It’s a new one, I think.

McNamee: Good, the gullible public will surely buy it. I mean, it’s not like your performance spiked at a time when you should have been continuing to fade like Dan Duquette predicted.

Roger: Ha, that’s a good one. Wanna come over and help me re-frost the tips of my hair?

McNamee: Sure, what are you wearing?

Roger: Cut-off t-shirt, pink Juicy sweats, Hannah Montana slippers.

McNamee: My favorites. Be right over.

TNYS: The New Yankee Stadium

Oh wait, it’s not for you and me? Drat!

Check out this very enlightening article by SI.com’s John Rolfe. Namely:

This little anecdote came to mind when the New York Daily News reported that VIPs will get free valet parking at the new Yankee Stadium for the next 40 years while fans pay handsomely for the privilege of stowing their junkers, starting this year when the tag jumps from $14 to $17 and then to $19 when the new ballpark opens in 2009. The thumb in the eye is that rates could go as high as $35 per jalopy by 2014.

I just hope that MetroNorth stop is operational by then.

Oh yeah, then there’s this tidbit which makes the Yanks’ brass look pretty smart:

In addition to the public subsidies and billions of dollars of increased revenue, the Yankees will benefit from a change to Major League Baseball‘s 2002 collective bargaining agreement (CBA), which allows teams to deduct new-stadium building costs from the revenue-sharing payments they make.

For the Yankees, whose $200 million player payroll makes them the largest contributor to the revenue-sharing pool, this means 40 percent of their share of the price tag may be borne by the remaining 29 baseball teams. All told, the Yankees and the taxpayers can each expect to pay about $450 million, with the remaining costs to be shared among the other baseball teams. (emphasis mine)

[EDIT: Read that again! The other teams have to pay for almost HALF of the Yank's share. Nice work, Randy Levine & crew. Too bad we, the taxpayers, have to carry the rest of the load.]

I’ve been curious for a while about why baseball players have kept using “a B12 shot”, either truthfully, or as a cover for a positive test (see also: Palmiero, Raphael) when it was “a tainted B12 shot”. Either way, there has to be a generally-accepted rationale for using B12. I tried it in pill form and didn’t notice much at all.

So thanks to the miracle series of tubes, I did some basic looking around for the benefits of B12 shots and here’s some quick things:

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Just released:

Thursday, January 3, 2008
Clemens ‘swears’ in interview he’s never used banned substances
ESPN.com news services

Roger Clemens says he was injected with “Lidocaine and B-12″ and not steroids or
human growth hormone by former trainer Brian McNamee, according to a portion of
an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” released Thursday.

“Lidocaine and B-12. It’s for my joints, and B-12 I still take today,” Clemens told Mike Wallace in the interview, which is scheduled to be shown Sunday night. It is Clemens’ first interview since the release of the Mitchell report in December.

In the report, McNamee claims to have injected Clemens with steroids in 1998, 2000 and 2001. He said he injected the seven-time Cy Young winner with HGH in 2000, according to the report. According to CBS, Clemens calls the accusation that he used steroids and HGH “ridiculous” and says he “never” used any banned substances. The interview was conducted last Friday.

Wallace asked Clemens if he swears he didn’t used banned substances. “Swear,” Clemens responds.

On Thursday, The New York Times reported that a lawyer for McNamee said he would sue Clemens if he accuses McNamee of lying in the interview.

“He’s got a chance to protect himself,” Richard D. Emery, a New York-based lawyer who specializes in libel and defamation actions, told The Times. “We’re not going to sue him if he doesn’t do it. But if he does it, we’re going to sue him.”

Oh, where to begin?

I need to do some research on B-12 shots. Same defense that Raffie Palmiero used, accusing Tejada of a tainted B-12 shot. Ya know what? After Raffie accued Tejada, I went out and bought B-12 caplets and took them for a few weeks to see if I felt materially better in any way. More limber? More energized? More able to rebound after being tired or working out? Nope. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t jabbing my posterior with a needle, but rather simply swallowing the vitamin.

I’ll try to do some B-12 research tonite and see what the “claims” are. Maybe if you mix B-12 and Flaxseed Oil you get some sort of super-compound that enables you to defend yourself against the press, subpoena-free investigations, drug tests and simple seven digit annual contracts. Note to self: get working on such a compound.

More to come, of course.

The always helpful and knowledgable Craig from Shysterball was kind enough to give some clarity on the possible legal course that drama this could take if McNamee indeed decides to sue Clemens after the interview. This is also in the comments section of his blog (as I linked to it below).

If it truly does come down to a he-said/he-said, it will still go to trial assuming no one blinks.

The way it works is that, after discovery (depositions, document requests, etc.), one side can try to get summary judgment, which is a means of winning the suit before trial on the basis of the other side’s lack of evidence. Essentially, the movant argues that there is no dispute as to the relevant facts, either because all sides agree what happened (yet disagree on the legal implications of it) or that the other side has no evidence to support it’s claim. The operative phrase is “dispute of material fact.” If there isn’t one, case over. If there is one, a jury decides what the facts are at trial.

In this case, if Clemens and McNamee both present evidence — and their own testimony under oath is evidence — that they are right, there will likely be a dispute of fact, requiring a trial. Other evidence could include the testimony of third parties (e.g. Pettite saying he saw McNamee inject Clemens), documents, and any other number of things.

Ultimately, however, it’s way too early to say. As you note on [here, below], Clemens could be vague and parse words, or anything else that comes short of flat out calling McNamee a liar. If McNamee sues anyway, Clemens could do the same thing in depositions, and we could have a situation where the two aren’t truly at loggerheads, and are instead talking past one another in oblique enough of a fashion that the waters remain muddy.

So the short answer (way too late) is that anything could happen, and we won’t know the odds of this thing going to trial at least until a complaint is filed, and probably much later than that.

hypocrite: a person who feigns some desirable or publicly approved attitude, esp. one whose private life, opinions, or statements belie his or her public statements. (source: Dictionary.com)

I love this word. I love how the majority of our sports heroes are staggeringly hypocritical. Heck, not just our sports heroes (see also: most elected officials and corporate leaders). If not for the fact that my work schedule precludes me from writing all day about this, we could have a great debate about the greatest hypocrites of the last X number of years. Maybe that’s an idea for future blogs: a 64 “team” tourney bracket.

Anyways, I want to believe Clemens. Why? I’m not really a huge fan of his but I rooted like mad for him when he pitched for my team. He materially helped my team win a World Series. He might be the lastest in a long line of over-paid mercenaries, willing to fight for the highest paycheck, but for a few years, he was MY mercenary and I rooted like crazy for him [and yes, that indeed makes me a hypocrite, I guess. I root for the laundry and sometimes I really can't stand the people inside them!]

But, once Robin (to his Batman) admitted that McNamee was indeed telling the truth, I am finding it hard to believe Clemens. So, now Clemens is taking his story to the press, namely the esteemed “60 Minutes” in a face-to-face interview with devout Yanks fan and Clemens’-admirer Mike Wallace this coming Sunday night (the interview was actually done this past Friday in Clemens’ living room). Here’s why I am still skeptical about Clemens: why didn’t he take the chance to speak on the record to the Mitchell Crew? Why now? Did he need to make sure his name was in the Mitchell Report? This smacks of hypocrisy in every way.

Gene Wojo (see link below) at ESPN.com does a great job setting Wallace’s agenda so it doesn’t look like a fluff-job. I agree, wholeheartedly. Worth reading as a preview.

It came out today that McNamee will sue Clemens for defamation if Clemens calls him a liar during the interview. You can bet that every utterance will be dissected like a State of the Union address. So what happens if McNamee actually gets Clemens to court? Will Pettitte (er, Robin) testify? Will others get called? Torre? Jeter? ARod?

I applaud Clemens for taking this step. It’s better than hiding under a rock like Palmiero or McGwire. If he truly is innocent, he HAS to do this. However, if he’s lying in an effort to “clean” his name and reputation and it eventually comes back to bite him, he’ll never live it down. (see also: Rose, Peter).

I can see these possible outcomes:
1) Interview goes off, fairly and balanced. Clemens denies everything. McNamee doesn’t sue, effectively exonerating Clemens. He said/he said. No certain winners or losers. Just pointing fingers, though Clemens’ reputation gets a slight boost for aggressively attacking his accusers without a rebuttal.

2) Interview goes off, fairly and balanced. Clemens denies everything. McNamee sues. Drags Clemens and others into court (subpeona power, folks). Circus ensues. If McNamee truly doesn’t have evidence (as his attorney has stated prior), who will emerge from this scrum? Will it even get to court if there is no evidence other than McNamee’s statements? (any attorney care to weigh in?)

3) Interview goes off, a fluff job of the highest order. Clemens doesn’t help himself since it would look like a joke. No change in public opinion.

I’m looking forward to watching Sunday night.

For other well-written prose on this subject:

• http://shysterball.blogspot.com/2008/01/clemens-brinksmanship.html
• http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=3174965&type=story