Mike Lupica's Disingenuous Attack on Andy Pettitte Is Disgusting and Wrong

Mike Lupica is right. Andy Pettitte can’t have it both ways because it is impossible to have it both ways when the same testimony is presented each time.

Craig Calcaterra of HardballTalk saw it coming.

On May 2, 2012, Calcaterra wrote that some individuals would accuse Pettitte, either directly or implicitly, of damaging the government’s case against Roger Clemens by changing his testimony.

Calcaterra provides all the evidence necessary to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Pettitte’s 2008 testimony and his recent testimony at the second Clemens trial were not contradictory. He provides a link to Pettitte’s 2008 testimony.

Click on the link and read Pettitte’s testimony. Pettitte said that he was “…a little confused and flustered. But after that, I was like, well, obviously I must have misunderstood him.”

The prosecutor said, “Do you think it’s likely that you did misunderstand what Clemens had told you then? Are you saying you just didn’t want to get into a dispute with him about it so you dropped the subject?”

Pettitte responded with “I’m saying that I was under the impression that he told me that he had taken it. And then when Roger told me that he didn’t take it, and I misunderstood him, I took it for that, that I misunderstood him.”

Pettitte concluded that he had misunderstood Clemens in 1999. If he had said at the trial, with certainty, that he understood Clemens told him he had used performance-enhancing substances in 1999, then Pettitte would have been attempting to have it both ways.

Lupica has cherry-picked portions of Pettitte’s testimony when he was questioned by Phil Schiliro, Majority Chief of Staff. See for yourself. Pettitte told Schiliro that he had misunderstood.

Lupica’s attempt to denigrate Andy Pettitte is despicable. In his usual disingenuous manner, the sportswriter who fancies himself another Edward R. Murrow refers to Pettitte as a God-fearing man.

He follows that by implying that maybe, just maybe, Pettitte wasn’t forthright when he revealed he had used HGH only twice, but then facetiously ends the paragraphs by saying that using HGH more than twice would be wrong, wrong, wrong.

Calcaterra hits the nail on the head, saying about people taking Lupica's position, “And not only are they dead wrong, but they’re doing a grave disservice to Andy Pettitte. The only man in this whole case who has been honest and consistent all along.”