Steroid Nation

Roger Clemens throws a slider: admits to injections

Roger Clemens pitched a forkball in the "60 Minutes" interview with Mike Wallace.  Clemens who is contesting the Mitchell Report and specifically the Brian McNamee testimony of injections of anabolic steroids and HGH admits to injections.  Clemens claims he received injections of B-12 and lidocaine?  lidocaine?

A creepy looking Clemens stretches his credibility -- beyond belief.  His tun changed from 'nothing' into injections of these bizarre drugs.  One  wonders if he listened to the threats of a defamation suite thrown at him by McNamee's lawyer.  To the KC Star.

It’s true. Roger Clemens will admit this Sunday on “60 Minutes” that his trainer, Brian McNamee, gave him injections, as stated in the Mitchell Report released last month.

Clemens, however, insists that the injections contained the painkiller lidocaine and vitamin B-12, according to excerpts released on Thursday by the CBS program.

After weeks of an ongoing media battle between Clemens and McNamee, who said in the Mitchell Report that he injected Clemens, a seven-time Cy Young Award winner, with steroids and human growth hormone, Sunday is the first interview with Clemens.

He broadcast a video denial on his Web site after the report compiled by Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, who conducted a 20-month investigation on behalf of Major League Baseball, was made public.

Clemens said on the video: “I did not use steroids or human growth hormone, and I’ve never done so. I did not provide Brian McNamee with any drugs to inject into my body. Brian McNamee did not inject steroids or human growth hormones into my body.”

During Sunday’s interview, Clemens is questioned at home in Katy, Texas, by longtime “60 Minutes” reporter Mike Wallace, who asks whether McNamee injected him with drugs.

“Lidocaine and B-12,” Clemens said. “It’s for my joints, and B-12 I still take today.”

Clemens also called McNamee’s assertions “ridiculous” and said he “never” used banned performance-enhancing substances. Wallace pushed him on the latter statement.

“Swear?” Wallace asked.

To which Clemens replied, “Swear.”

We will swear that is one dumb excuse.  When does Clemens claim Tyler Hamilton's 'chimera double' received steroids and HGH?  On "Letterman"?

 

Anyone counting the Clemens' pitches?

The Iowa Caucuses happen tonight.  The BCS bowl games continue on schedule.  The Middle East is about to explode once again.  Oil prices hit record highs, not to mention that the supply of crude is dropping like a Bruce Sutter forkball.

Ignore them all.  What one story dominates the news every day for the past 3 weeks?  Roger Clemens.

Today's Clemens-mania installments:

1. George Steinbrenner says the Yankees will not re-sign Clemens.

"I'm not signing Clemens," Steinbrenner, the Yankees' senior vice president, told the newspaper, citing the Yankees' wealth of young starting pitching.

2.  The New York Times previews the Clemens 60 Minutes interview in which Clemens refutes trainer Brian McNamee's gluteal steroid knowledge.

“He says what he has said before and has said all along,” Wallace said Thursday in a telephone interview. “He said he never took injections from McNamee. He says he didn’t take the stuff. Nothing different.”

3.  Bloomberg says Clemens will hold a post-60 minutes news conference.

Roger Clemens will hold a press conference on Jan. 7, one day after a nationally televised interview airs on CBS's ``60 Minutes'' in which the pitcher might defend himself against allegations of using performance- enhancing drugs.

4. McNamee's lawyer says he will sue Clemens (as we reported here)

5. Joe Torre won't pick sides in the Clemens v. McNamee fight.

6.  Clemens's speaking engagement to Texas high school baseball coaches is a go.  Guess Roger will be injected into the curriculum.  This hasn't gone over well with all parties.  From this source:

In the meantime, as Brenham baseball coach Jim Long said to MLB.com, "We just cannot condemn someone on what we've seen. It's not fair ... There's not enough evidence."

Clemens will give the keynote speech at the THBCA convention in Waco on Jan. 12. The talk will cover Clemens' workout recommendations. It's safe to say Clemens won't recommend steroid use.

And doesn't that say it all?  The good old boys who run sports will not buy into the obvious evidence that baseball is juiced, with a strong probability Clemens juiced too.  Kinda reminds one of La Cosa Nostra.  'This thing of ours'. Omerta.  Passed on from generation to generation.  And denied by FBI strongman J. Edgar Hoover, whose FBI ignored the burgeoning Mafia network, thus allowing it to explode.

Where is Joe Valachi when you need him?

 

2008: The year of Clemens-cy?

Three huge stories begin 2008: the US presidential election, the on-going war in Iraq, and Roger Clemens's crusade for steroid clemency.  Well, one large story -- Clemens -- and 2 relatively large stories.  And not really 'clemency' but 'acquittal'.

Someone tell us why lawyers seem to crowd out athletes on the sports pages these days?  Today's Clemens twist comes from Brian McNamee's camp.  McNamee, the trainer who claims gluteal knowledge of Clemens's steroids, assembled a team of lawyers to counter Clemens's team of Texas all-star lawyers.  We say forgot the home-run derby; let's choose sides and argue tort law the night before the All-Star game.

On to the circus sideshow.  Brain McNamee's lawyer says if Roger Clemens even hints that his client is untruthful, the McNamee camp sues the Clemens group.  If that scenario occurs, Clemens could find himself sworn in to testify in a Manhattan NY court.  Story in the NY Times.

Roger Clemens will face a lawsuit if he says in a “60 Minutes” interview that his former personal trainer, Brian McNamee, was not truthful when he said he injected Clemens with performance-enhancing drugs, a lawyer hired by McNamee said Wednesday.

The “60 Minutes” interview was taped Friday at Clemens’s home in Katy, Tex., and is scheduled to be broadcast Sunday at about 7:30 p.m. Eastern, after the conclusion of an N.F.L. playoff game. The lawyer, Richard D. Emery, said in a telephone interview that Clemens should try to keep the segment off the air or face a lawsuit for damaging McNamee’s livelihood.

“He’s got a chance to protect himself,” said Emery, who is based in New York and specializes in libel and defamation actions. “We’re not going to sue him if he doesn’t do it. But if he does it, we’re going to sue him.”

Now at bat for Clemens's team, Rusty Hardin:

When told of Emery’s comments, Clemens’s lawyer, Rusty Hardin, said, “I believe a client who’s telling the truth should tell the world the truth.”

However McNamee looked for a pick-off move:

Emery said he was mystified why Hardin would allow Clemens to speak with “60 Minutes.”

“It’s really a huge risk on his part to subject Roger to a Manhattan jury on either our defamation case or on a perjury case when he testifies under oath in our defamation case,” Emery said.

Anyone get the idea, this back and forth will continue all year?