Rocket's "Pitch" Misses Target, Government Gets a Walk

Roger Clemens had 20 strikeouts in a nine-inning game...twice. Once against the Seattle Mariners, the other against the Detroit Tigers. He accomplished a feat which has never been matched in Major League Baseball's rich and enduring history.

The active career strike-out leader and seven-time Cy Young winner could not deliver a strike to the United States House Oversight and Government Reform committee Wednesday, however. He threw his pitch on performance-enhancing drug use far and outside to a panel considering his potential fate within the sport, and, ultimately, withing the criminal justice system.

Furthermore, his untimely walk may have allowed the opposition to get into scoring position in his attempt to win his most important game of pitches and strikes, and hits and misses in his career.

William Roger Clemens, a 45-year-old pitcher who has been unafraid to throw close to batters in his career, took the same tactical approach to Capitol Hill on Wednesday  hoping his name and intimidation would get the better of the committee lined up to take swings at claims he used human growth hormones during his career.

Clemens was unable to scare off the opposition or force them to go down looking as he attempted to pitch out of the jam created when his former trainer, Brian McNamee, tipped the team facing Clemens on a secret behind the star pitcher's success—that Roger Clemens used a performance-enhancing drug. McNamee, who, despite confessing to having lied at times during testimony, says he injected HGH in Clemens' butt.

Clemens' biggest adversary during the game he is playing with his future was in Henry Waxman, one who took his time in the batter's box against the 6-foot 4-inch pitcher.

Waxman, the Committee Chairman, watched as Clemens hid the ball (read truth) in his hand behind his back in an attempt to cover up which pitch he had in store for the delegation.

It took approximately five hours for Waxman to finish the at-bat, one which drew only four pitches from a man whom ESPN analysts have considered the "Greatest Living pitcher." Clemens was unable to force the Oversight Committee into an out, with Waxman and the Democrats grilling Clemens earning a free pass on base—one which appears to be leading to the United States Justice Department.

Perhaps Clemens, who is eighth on the career wins list with 354 and second with 4,672 strikeouts behind Nolan Ryan's 5,714, misremembered where the strike zone began and ended—much the same way his teammate Andy Pettitte "misremembered" a casual, yet private, conversation with Clemens in either 1999 or 2000 in which Clemens, according to Pettitte's sworn deposition before Congress, "told me he had taken HGH (human growth hormone)."

"Andy Pettitte is my friend," Clemens said during the opening stage of his hearing. "He was my friend before this. He will be my friend after this. I think Andy has misheard. I think he misremembers our conversation."

Clemens was seated before the committee whose sole responsibility in this matter is to come to terms with allegations of steroid use by him and several other major league players who appeared in Senator George Mitchell’s Report to the Commissioner of Baseball of an Independent Investigation into the Illegal Use of Steroids and Other Performance Enhancing Substances by Players in Major League Baseball behind a sign which read "Mr. Clemens".

The phonetic spelling would have been, Mis-ster Clem-ens—with an emphasis placed on the Mis.

Mis-ster Clemens, the imposing 234-pound short-haired witness, appeared before many on the committee to have willfully and regularly misrepresented statements of fact and presented fictional accounts of events which were deemed to have occurred by a witness whom the committee, and Clemens, stated it had respected, namely Pettitte.

"I know that some people will still think I am lying no matter what I say or do. And I know that because I’ve said that I didn’t take steroids, it will look like an attack on Senator Mitchell’s report. I am not saying Senator Mitchell’s report is entirely wrong and I am not trying to convince those who have already made up their minds based only on an allegation. For those with an open mind, however, I am saying that Brian McNamee’s statements about me are wrong. Once again, I never took steroids or human growth hormone."

Pettitte's sworn testimony mentions that he used HGH in 2004. The Yankees lefthander, a confessed devout Christian, spoke to committee lawyers under oath last week and provided information which coincided with many of McNamee's claims—a point which may come back to haunt Clemens, who'd pitched to the committee that everyone except he, himself, was either mis-informed, had mis-remembered, or had mis-stated the truth.

Waxman said he planned to allow the Mitchell Report to stand as the final word until Rusty Hardin called it "a horrible, disgraceful report" when the 409-page report was released on Dec. 13, 2007. Waxman then stated that the committee had a duty to investigate "a serious claim of inaccuracy."

On an uneventful day where McNamee was told he'd told "lie after lie after lie after lie," the government committee heard legal and binding testimony by three principles in the matter: Clemens, McNamee, and Charlie Scheeler, Investigator on Senator Mitchell’s staff.

Clemens and McNamee both faced credibility issues and, at the end of the day, neither was closer to being more believable than the other.

Clemens stated in his sworn testimony that he never used performance-enhancing drugs and that McNamee was being dishonest. McNamee stated the opposite—he not only provided Clemens with the HGH, but injected him with it. Not Lidocaine or Vitamin B-12 as Clemens had stated in an earlier press conference.

"At the end of the day, I have been accused of doing something that I did not do. I have been asked to prove that I did not do it. How in the world can I prove a negative? No matter what we discuss here today, I am never going to have my name restored. I know that a lot of people want me to say that I have taken steroids and be done with it. But I cannot in good conscience admit to doing something that I did not do; even if it would be easier to do so."

Waxman, a Democrat from Beverly Hills, stated after hearing testimony from both men that, "If Mr. McNamee is lying, then he has acted inexcusably and he has made Mr. Clemens an innocent victim. If Mr. Clemens isn't telling the truth, then he has acted shamefully and has smeared Mr. McNamee. I don't think there's anything in between."

"Somebody's not telling the truth today," added Mark Souder, an Indiana Republican. "It's better not to talk about the past than to lie about the past."

Dan Burton (R-Indiana) engaged McNamee directly on his credibility, stating, "You've told this committee and the people of this country that Roger Clemens did things. I don't know what to believe, but I know one thing I don't believe and that's you."

McNamee's issues stemmed partly from stating he had received a Ph.D., when, in fact, he later admitted to having received his award from a degree mill. Clemens stated he stuck wiht McNamee because he believed McNamee did, in fact, have a doctorate degree.

Another area which divides truth between McNamee and Clemens is a birthday bash Jose Canseco held in 1988.

McNamee stated that his former nanny was in attendance at the party and recalled precisely what she was wearing ("(She was) chasing after a young child and she was wearing a peach bikini with green in it with board shorts.")

Clemens contacted his former nanny before the committee called her, something which Waxman chided Clemens for, stating, "This action means there's always going to be a question of whether you tried to influence her testimony. And I gather your lawyer thinks..."

Clemens interrupted Waxman, stating "Mr. Chairman, I was doing you all a favor, as far as I was concerned. I haven't seen this lady in a long time. She's a sweet lady. And I wanted her—to get her to you as quick as possible if you had any questions for her.

"And, again, I'm hurt by those questions that I would get in the way of finding anything that you guys were looking for. That's—I'm hurt by that statement."

Waxman said that the nanny didn't recall the party but confirmed she stayed at Canseco's home with Clemens' wife, Debbie, and children, and "Clemens was at the home during relevant time period."

The "relevant" time period is to have been a luncheon Canseco was holding in June 1998 where McNamee and Clemens are purported to first have discussed performance-enhancing drugs.

The woman said to a Houston newspaper that she cared for Clemens' children at a party at Jose Canseco's Miami home in June 1998, but said she was at the party, not Clemens.

"I was there with his little ones and he wasn't and that's what I told. I told the truth. If I have to swear on the Bible or whatever, he wasn't in there."

The nanny issue isn't paramount to the Clemens case, but it does raise a question about why Clemens contacted her and discussed with her Canseco's party ahead of the committe's phone call—a point Waxman brought up with Clemens during the final remarks.

"But you chose I think the worst approach. That's my opinion. You invited her to your home; had a specific conversation about whether you were at Mr. Canseco's house. And you did this before you gave the committee her contact information."

The potential winning run for the government is on base in Clemens' testimony—one that was sworn to be truthful and not misleading. Clemens testified under order that lying under oath can equate to a prison term.

Inasmuch as both Clemens and McNamee could potentially face perjury charges if either were to be found guilty of lying during the hearing, both parties attempted to play the truth game to the best of their abilities.

In Clemens' case, he needed a perfect pitch, a swing, and an out. McNamee's case rested on ensuring the opposing team knew Clemens' best pitch and could draw the aging star to make a mistake on the mound—or (Capitol) Hill, that is. 

Clemens appeared to make attempts on Wednesday to be as overpowering and defiant of odds against the Capitol Hill representatives as he has been of opposing players wearing Major League uniforms, not Armani suits, and, with that push to win, found himself tangled in a nasty lie.

Tim Dahlberg, a national sports columnist for The Associated Press, drew a rather straight-forward conclusion about Clemens:

"Worst of all, Clemens just flat out lied. There's no way of escaping that conclusion because there's no way Andy Pettitte and his wife were lying in their interviews, and no way Chuck Knoblauch was lying when he said that McNamee's estimates of shooting him up 7-9 times with HGH sounded about right.

"Both the Pettittes and Knoblauch were tortured about their testimony and what it might do to Clemens. None of them wanted to hurt the Rocket, but in the end they felt compelled to tell the truth, and the truth turned out to be suspiciously like McNamee laid it out to be."

Did Clemens' lawyers get to the nanny first in order to ensure she remembered things "correctly"? Had she also misremembered until Clemens got to her? Those are questions Waxman and the opposing team will mull over among other issues between McNamee and Clemens in the coming weeks. 

It is also something Jeff Novitsky, the IRS Special Agent, will also heavily consider as he weighs evidence against Clemens in a possible performance-enhancing drug charge.

If Novitsky happens to believe Clemens has something to hide, Clemens, who has played in 709 major league baseball games, may have walked off the field one final time when he two-hit the Boston Red Sox over six innings at Fenway park last September.