Bloody good show: McNamee saved alleged Clemens' steroid syringes

How weird does it get?  This weird: Brian McNamee, Roger Clemens's ex-trainer says he saved syringes and needles used in the injections of anabolic steroids and HGH into the Rocket.  The NY Daily News reports: (and here)

Brian McNamee turned over physical evidence last month to federal investigators that he believes will show Roger Clemens used performance-enhancing drugs, according to McNamee's lawyers.

"This is evidence the government has that we believe will corroborate Brian in every significant way," said McNamee lawyer Earl Ward.

McNamee's attorneys would not discuss the details of the evidence, but according to a source close to the former Yankee strength and conditioning coach, McNamee gave the Justice Department's BALCO investigators vials with traces of steroids and growth hormone, as well as blood-stained syringes and gauze pads that may contain the Rocket's DNA.

Wow.  What does this prove?  Probably not much, since McNamee might have used Clemens's blood stained gauze to contaminate a needle or syringe etc. etc.  The chain of evidence is certainly not professionally ascertained.  The again...Might Congress using a lesser standard of evidence than say a court, accept this kind of physical evidence?

DNA matching could prove the Clemens connection.  When an injection is performed a small amount the the recipient's blood is back-washed into the syringe.  That would allow DNA testing to verify Rocket-DNA; forensic analysis could also identify anabolic steroids.

n a statement released to the media, Clemens' attorney Lanny Breuer called McNamee a "troubled man" who has lied to federal investigators and former Sen. George Mitchell and accused the trainer of manufacturing evidence.

"He said Roger treated him like family - but he now claims he kept blood, gauze, and needles from Roger Clemens for seven years. It defies all sensibility. It is just not credible - who in their right mind does such a thing?" Breuer said.

Proper protocol (if followed) would require the blood stained medical implements etc. be disposed of in a red, marked bag then sealed and segregated before appropriate processing.  Obviously those blood products could contain hepatitis or AIDS.   Why would McNamee be saving the Clemens relics for another purpose?  (like what?)  And why is a trainer injecting a player?  Trainers are not licensed to perform therapeutic injections.  This entire situation sounds bizarre.  CSI, Yankee Park.

The New York Times says that these blood relics will not be admissible in court (although that may not be the question either)

Scientific experts said there was no known method to date steroids or human growth hormone. The syringes, vials and gauze pads are said to date from 2000 and 2001, part of a four-year period in which McNamee contends he gave Clemens drug injections. But even if the physical evidence tests positive for Clemen’s DNA and, say, steroids, Clemens’s lawyers could argue that McNamee added steroid traces to the original evidence in a bid to incriminate Clemens, experts say.

Used syringes at a trainer's home for 7 years.  That's spooky.  Was McNamee going to clone the Rocket?

The newest development in the Clemens case is similar to an issue that cyclist Lance Armstrong, long under suspicion of using performance-enhancing drugs, confronted in 2006. In that instance, the International Cycling Union discounted a reported link between Armstrong and the banned substance EPO because they concluded that testers had not followed proper procedures in retroactively testing Armstrong’s 1999 urine samples five years later.

In Clemens’s case, physical evidence that is said to have resided in McNamee’s home for at least seven years has been handed to federal investigators. But what happened during that period?

“The handling of the syringes will be a very powerful argument on Clemens’s behalf,” Catlin said. “In doping, the issue of chain of custody is always raised and these syringes appear to have been handled by the accuser. It’s generally the first line of attack from the lawyers.”

Comments

[Sooze]

That is so fricking weird that he saved those.

[anonymous]

You've got to get the story about McNamee and Clemens wife up asap.

And can this story get any more twisted?

[Will]

McNamee held on to the evidence because he knew that if Clemens ever got caught, he'd probably throw the trainer under the bus saying that he had no idea what McNamee was injecting into him. I think in the long run, Clemens is the one who's going to look pretty foolish in all of this.