Letters to the Editor
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Colts record
Clearly the last game of the season meant little to the Colts, but they still lost, leaving them with a record of 13-3...
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Salon front-page headline
says "swining" not swinging ...
While Clemens is used to talking to the media and being interviewed, he's not a smooth liar. The Lidocaine and B 12 line and the condescension toward Pettitte, for example. Neither came off as believable. Then there was the bizarre "he recently called me about fishing" story and the whining that "I helped him out" -- the latter sounded almost like he wished McNamee had been willing to go to jail to protect him, like the trainer who worked with Bonds.
He should just admit he experimented with the stuff, but never used it for very long. I think that's probably the truth. He doesn't think it diminishes his accomplishments, so he feels justified in lying about it now, to defend those accomplishments.
As King says, McNamee had no incentive to single out Clemens. None whatsoever.
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Ah... Clemens...
As usual, he doesn't seem to get it. Clemens goes on television and gives unsatisfying answers to all of the really important questions and then complains that fans aren't cutting him any slack. Yes everyone, it's our fault.
Here's one for you, Roger: Cut the fans some slack. Yes, you are innocent until proven guilty, but let's recap the events of the last couple years. Jose Canseco, a player that nobody liked and few were inclined to believe, accuses several popular players of steroid use. Rafael Palmeiro, a popular player, goes in front of congress and flatly denies it. Later, Palmeiro fails a drug test and it turns out Canseco the scumbag was telling the truth. Then McNamee, who is also a shady character, says he injected several popular players with steroids. And Pettite, one of the accused, confesses proving that McNamee is not a complete liar. What are we supposed to think about you, Roger Clemens? Maybe ten years ago, the fans could have extended you the benefit of the doubt, but we're well past that point now. We have legitimate reasons for thinking that you have used steroids. You need to answer the hard questions and give us a real reason to believe you. Yes, that sucks but can you at least understand where we're coming from?
In any case, the comments section for this column is probably not the best place for an open letter to Roger Clemens. I'm just annoyed right now by how self-absorbed he is acting.
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Chalk?
Does anyone know the history of calling the favorite the chalk? I can't, off the top of my head, make any kind of reasonable guess.
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Common Side Effects...
...of steroid abuse include faulty memory and angry bravado.
I don't think this exercise in blame is pointless, King, because if like Marion Jones before him, Clemens succeeds in charting a course for prison for himself, we might see greater transparency by the athletes in future. And that's where the rubber meets the road.
It is of course a Shakespearean tragedy, but somehow I'm less sympathetic to Clemens than I was to Jones. Why is that? She was far more egregious. Is it because Clemens's use was more gratuitous? He was already a HOF pitcher BEFORE he started using, while Jones was already neck-deep before her first Olympics, and there was no one in her professional or personal life to whom she could have turned to bail herself out.
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Marion Jones and Clemens --
Not to mention he has a fortune large enough to live very well and very quietly for several life times. And Marion Jones? Hardly.
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Clemens
lied through his teeth.
When asked if passing a lie detector test would help his cause, he replied, "I don't know. Would it, Mike?'
Yes it would help, you moronic juiced-out freak.
I wonder if there are any good games on tonight. Anyone? Oh, look, Butler is playing Loyola(IL).
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The lie detector
As most any good lawyer will tell you, Clemens has already been given a lie detector test. It is typical for a defense lawyer to give his client a lie detector test by a person respected by law enforcement. If he passes, the test is publicized. If he doesn't then "I don't know, some people say those things are not reliable."
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Clemmens, the Owners and the Commish
What stuns me about the coverage of performance enhancing drugs is how much focus there has been on the players and how little attention has been paid to the role of the owners and Bud Selig. The powers that be in MLB knew what was going on and if they did not actively encourage it, they certainly gave it a wink and a smile. Bud Selig may not be as culpable as the players who actually took the drugs but his hands are still pretty dirty.
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UPPING THE ANTE: Defamation suit filed
So, Clemens has decided to file suit against McNamee for defamation. It reminds me of when Oscar Wilde sued the Marquess of Queensbury for calling him a "posing Somdomite" (sic). The trial that resulted cleared Queensbury as being justified and led to Wilde being prosecuted and jailed for gross indecency.
If nothing else, he must be willing to say under oath that McNamee is lying. This should be interesting.
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Clemens
"But McNamee, under federal investigation for drug distribution, had a deal with prosecutors that gave him immunity for any truthful statements he made. He risked jail only if caught in a lie."
I think the truth is just a bit different. McNamee risks prosecution if prosecutors think what he says is untruthful. That's not the same thing as being caught in a lie. McNamee might just be telling the prosecutors what they want to hear, or what he thinks they want to hear.
In any event, McNamee wasn't under oath when he talked with Mitchell, and was under no legal compulsion either to tell the truth or not tell the truth.
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An objection
This is a minor point, but King, you said: "The parties involved -- owners, players, media, fans -- should each accept a share of the blame and move on to more productive things ..." Can someone explain to me why fans deserve a share of the blame here?
I'm a baseball fan, so what exactly did I do wrong? Are you saying that because I and others like me continued to follow the game, watch it on TV and go to a few games now and then, we're partly to blame for the steroid problem? Are you seriously claiming that fans (from whom owners and players were trying to hide the steroid problem, by the way) had a responsibility to boycott the game, even when we have no way to act collectively rather than individually (which has no impact). All we're supposed to do is enjoy the game, and that's all we can do. We can't take responsibility for it.
Owners, players and sportswriters all had the opportunity, either as individuals or as organizations, to either try to curb steroid use or shine a light on it. But fans didn't have that opportunity. Until there's a fans' union with a seat at the MLB bargaining table and some real leverage, stop blaming us when there's nothing meaningful we could have done. I don't mean to single you out, King, but it has became automatic for commentators to blame fans along with everyone else, and that's just a way of shucking responsibility by spreading it so thin that it disappears.