Roger Clemens Is a National Embarrassment

Roger Clemens has publicly claimed that he never used performance-enhancing drugs. Not too many people actually believe him, but an egomaniac like Clemens never did really care too much about anything negative that anyone might think about him.

Well, this time Clemens might genuinely care. Why? Because his freedom might just depend upon it.

Clemens has already been found guilty in the court of public opinion for steroid usage. However, the issue at hand is not whether he took performance-enhancing drugs, but whether or not he lied under oath before Congress.

Congress has asked the Justice Department to look into whether or not the publicly disgraced Clemens should be indicted on federal charges of lying under oath to them. The Justice Department has brought the case to a grand jury, and the investigative proceedings are currently being led by U.S. Attorney Daniel P. Butler.

Clemens' lead lawyer, and everyone's favorite snake-oil salesman, Rusty Hardin brushed off the news of the ongoing investigation by minimizing it as "standard operating procedure for a prosecutor." Could any other remarks have been expected from the lawyer who comically resembles more of a "good ol' boy" caricature than Yosemite Sam? Not likely.

The possibilities of Clemens facing actual jail time, should there be an indictment and subsequent conviction, is quite real, considering that Olympic sprinter Marion Jones, in a far less publicized case, received six months in prison for the same charge of lying under oath about steroid use.

Clemens filed a civil defamation lawsuit against Brian McNamee that is currently pending, which in and of itself is a comical situation that is somewhat reminiscent of O.J. Simpson's outrage and subsequent quest to find his "wife's killers."

Like O.J. Simpson, Roger Clemens has all the appearance of an unrepentant bold-faced liar, and I'm sure that most people following this case will undoubtedly be hoping that he gets hit with an indictment, followed by a conviction and a significant amount of jail time that would perhaps teach this coward the lesson that he never learned on the baseball diamond where he arrogantly swaggered for years.

According to a USA Today poll, only 31 percent of the American people currently believe that Roger Clemens is telling the truth, and that number appears to be rapidly declining as time passes. These are practically George W. Bush Presidential approval ratings.

With that in mind, Clemens had better hope that this case never gets to a Grand Jury, because the deck already seems to be stacked heavily against his chances of acquittal. 

Clemens, once a sure-fire first ballot Hall of Fame candidate, now has two chances of ever being enshrined into Cooperstown: slim and none. 

Testimony and documents will be collected for the proceedings that will likely bring former NY Yankee pitcher Andy Pettitte and prime accuser Brian McNamee to the stand, once again, to testify against the embattled Clemens.

Roger Clemens is currently a black mark on the game of major league baseball and has become a national embarrassment and an anti-role model for sports fans and children everywhere.

The next time he could be wearing pinstripes might just be when he's shackled in some federal penitentiary and surrounded by other incarcerated felons who probably won't find him quite so imposing when he's not holding a baseball sixty feet six inches away from their heads on a baseball mound.

A memo to Roger Clemens: If you think you've been in the big leagues, wait until you see some of the prisons they have upstate. When the verdict ultimately comes down for you, perhaps you'll find out the hard way that the toughest bullpens in this country aren't really located somewhere out in the dirt and grass behind left-center field.

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