It shouldn’t take long to see if Roger Clemens’ three-day whistle stop tour of the nation’s capital — which included meetings with 24 hill residents — will have its intended effect. If we take Rep. Tom Davis’ (R-Va) comment at face value that “someone is lying in spectacular fashion about the ultimate question,” then the next step in Clemens vs. McNamee is an investigation by the justice department. Such results, however, are not always available in the city with an #### lobbyist fetish.
Going after Brian McNamee would be simple. He’s a nobody with no friends, and punishing him for soiling the name of the Republican favorite would be easy. But proving he did so would be much tougher faced with corroborating statements from former clients. Clemens, while easier to prosecute, is safer from the threat of possible prosecution because, well, he’s Roger Clemens.
Most who have testified before such a body aren’t able to name-drop about a deer-blind phone call of support from a former president who just happens to belong to the same party as those roasting his antagonist. Nor do they have questioners falling over themselves to expound the heroic acts of a man who tossed a ball for a living.
Rep. Dan Burton left little doubt regarding his allegiance as he railed against McNamee saying, “Roger Clemens is a titan in baseball and you with all these lies, if they are not true, are destroying him and his reputation. Now how does he get his reputation back if this is not true, and how can we believe you because you’ve lied and lied and lied and lied.”
What was expected to be nothing more than popular topic-posturing turned into a partisan love fest where each side praised the particular enemy they’d prefer to sleep with, but the Republican from Indiana wasn’t the most pathetic member of the Beltway circus.
No, the prize for biggest suck up does not go to the congressman who allegedly threatened Major League Baseball with an investigation after a group including Democratic party spend-thrift George Soros made an initial play for the Washington Nationals. That honor actually goes to a trio of GOP blowhards who treated Clemens like an NRA lobbyist.
Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) displayed photos of Clemens to show how his body had not changed over the years saying, “You appear to me about the same size in all those photos. It doesn’t appear [your] size changed much.” The photos, by the way, were exactly the same as those in a 62-page document Clemens’ team gave to reporters prior to the hearing. The honorable representative from the great state of North Carolina also grilled McNamee if he planned to write a book and sneered at him saying “We'll see about that,” when he answered no. Fortunately, Foxx solidified her claim as an impartial observer by being seen giving Debbie Clemens a hug following the proceedings.
Joining Foxx on the Clemens appreciation committee was Carolyn Maloney (R-N.Y.), who thanked him for his service to the New York Yankees and, maybe most pathetic, Rep. Eleanor Norton, who commented “All I can say, Mr. Clemens, is I’m sure you’re going to heaven.”
While the Republican side of the committee did the most to steer clear of contesting Clemens on the inconsistencies of his testimony, to be honest the Democrats had their share of sucking up as well. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) admitted the big right-hander was “one of my heroes” while discrediting Clemens’ testimony. William “Lacy” Clay (D-Mo.), who could have been one of Foxx’s lap dogs, asked what uniform he’d be wearing upon induction to the Hall of Fame
Who the hell cares.
With a nation at war, gas prices choking the economy and gulf state residents still in need of a place to live more than two years after a massive storm left them homeless, it is unconsionable that a group of elected officials, whose job it is to take care of such problems, would put aside such meager concerns in order to suck up to an athlete who seems to have adopted the Pete Rose defense — arrogantly lie while the evidence mounts.
“No matter what we discuss here today, I am never going to have my name restored,” said Clemens channeling the all-time hits king. “I know a lot of people want me to say I took steroids and be done with it. But I cannot in good conscience admit to doing something I did not do, even if it would be easier to do so.”
Though Burton claimed to have seen no evidence that Clemens used steroids in his attack on McNamee, he should have heard enough to question why the Rocket was allegedly getting shot up with Lidocaine for various injuries after Dr. Arthur Pappas, the medical director for the Boston Red Sox for 25 years, told investigators the drug is used only as a local anesthetic mostly in combination with other injections that include, according to a New York Daily News article, steroids. Burton is correct that there was no smoking gun but there are plenty of powder burns to raise the su####ion of anyone actually concerned with getting at the truth.
With baseball being exempt from the nation’s anti-trust laws, Congress has some oversight into what is going on and, to be fair, if it weren’t for their grandstanding nearly three years ago, baseball would not have a drug testing program, the Mitchell report would not have been instigated, and Bud Selig and Donald Fehr could continue to hide behind their clouds of lies. So maybe some good could become of the hearing.
But if this is where it ends, at least we have the magnanimous Clemens to help us through the dark times.
“If I am guilty of anything it is of being to trusting of everyone, wanting to see the best in everyone, being too nice to everyone.”
From our good friends at Hendricks Sports Management, where
billable hours is not just an accounting term but a way of life, comes the
third installment in the Roger Clemens defense strategy that has so far
produced a predictable interview and an uninformative, slime-covered, secretly
recorded phone conversation. The latest submission, the 49-page “Analysis of
the Career of Roger Clemens,” further shows Clemens’ defense team will leave no
dollar unturned in its half-assed approached to defending its client.
The report in itself is not bad. Chock full of colorful
graphs and tables, the crunch of numbers, categories and comparisons are enough
to drain the brain of any amateur sabermatrician. And that is exactly the
point. Innocence through confusion. Bury the opposition behind a mountain of
data. It worked for O.J., and it worked for Capitalist Records in its suit
against Chef over ownership of Stinky Britches.
Hendricks Sports Management has wisely employed the
Chewbacca defense. It is asking the members of the supposed jury in the court
of public opinion to deliberate and conjugate the Emancipation Proclamation to
determine if charges leveled against their client makes any sense. Johnny
Cochran would have been proud.
The first real good flood of information appears on Page 10
in the form of a table that breaks Roger’s seasonal ERA margins — a comparison
of the Rocket’s ERA to league averages — into six tiers. No explanation is
offered as to why the authors chose six categories instead of two, 12 or 24.
The text below the table states that Clemens produced nine “average-to-good”
years, nine years of “superior” performances and six years “at the highest
levels.” Below that is a three-#### line graph to better illustrate the ups
and downs of his career. It looks nice, in a high school term paper kind of
way.
According to the report, Clemens’ best years were over in
1999, and “While Clemens pitched at a high level of quality at different points
throughout his career, the quality of his pitching declined as he reached his
late 30s and early 40s.”
Not exactly a winning endorsement for a free-agent pitcher,
who at the end of the season still had not yet ruled out another return to the
game. But if any suitors were to call upon the still-unattached pitcher, it
would take no time for the boys at Hendricks to produce another report
extolling the virtues of the man who between the ages of 41-43 won 38 games
while posting a 2.40 ERA.
The report is correct in saying that Clemens’ career was
lengthened by his ability to learn new pitches and his adoption of a fitness
routine following his shoulder surgery in 1985. No matter what the level of
artificial help, if any, a pitcher uses, long-term success depends on
continually learning new ways to get a batter out and being in shape.
Nolan Ryan, Clemens’ friend and hero, whose career was
examined in the report and who is by far the best litmus test for Clemens,
stressed fitness and intelligence his entire career. Ryan survived 27 years of
big league punishment not through chemical help, but by changing his pitching
style and reducing the burden on his arm and shoulder by developing and
maintaining leg strength. The report uses that fact in support of Clemens. It
is the strongest argument in a paper that goes from viable to confusing to
flat-out wrong.
The confusion comes on the final page where a document
titled, Exhibit A, makes the claim that if Clemens pitched for the Rangers
instead of Houston in 2005, he would have finished the season with a 24-3
record and an eighth Cy Young. How this has any bearing on the Rocket’s case is
a complete mystery — especially with the authors’ disregard for wins as an
accurate measure of a pitcher’s individual ability.
Things go from weird to wrong at the end of the analysis of
the report, as the authors list 31 Hall of Famers who pitched into their 40s as
a way to show how unspectacular Clemens has been.
The problem is that not every pitcher mentioned actually
pitched into their 40s. According to baseball-reference.com and
baseball-almanac.com, Mordecai “Three Fingers” Brown, Jim Bunning, Bob Gibson,
Walter Johnson and Robin Roberts all finished their careers at the age of 39.
Four more (Chief Bender, Carl Hubbell, Ferguson Jenkins,
Herb Pennock) pitched only one year into their 40s. Three others (Dennis
Eckersley, Satchel Paige and Hoyt Wilhelm) were relievers and one, Cy Young,
pitched in an era so long past that any comparison is highly suspect. That
leaves a total of 26 pitchers to safely judge Clemens against. A nice number,
but hardly the landslide of evidence suggested in the report. But how does
Clemens compare to his earlier colleagues?
With a minimum number of four years pitched in their 40s,
(Clemens toiled for five) the list get narrowed down to Grover Cleveland
Alexander, Steve Carlton, Red Faber, Jesse Haines, Phil Niekro, ####lord Perry,
Nolan Ryan, Warren Spahn, Don Sutton, Dazzy Vance and Early Wynn as the only
“... noteworthy ... Hall of Fame pitchers (who) pitched into their 40s.”
The verdict? Clemens leads them all in winning percentage,
earned run average and WHIP.
Clemens is arguably the best of all time, a first ballot
Hall of Famer. But this report does nothing to support his claims of innocence.
