More on Clemens

Having had 24 hours to let the testimony in the congressional hearings marinate, I have to tell you that I am still convinced that Roger Clemens is the big loser in all of this. While Brian McNamee was exposed and, in some cases, verbally attacked for being the lying SOB that he is, it is still Clemens who left us with the most unanswered questions. Questions such as:

1.) How does he explain his best friend Andy Pettitte's sworn testimony claiming that Clemens told him he had taken HGH in a conversation that took place in either 1999 or 2000? At first it was that he was referring to his wife's HGH use which we found our was definitely not true because here HGH use began in 2003. Then it was something about how he was simply referring to some show he watched on TV where some old men took HGH and felt much better after taking it. Then is was that Pettitte simply "misremembered" their conversation. Nice try Rog! I'm not buying it.

2.) Are we to believe that Debbie Clemens is the only member of the family to take HGH? Please! I am quite certain that Debbie probably would not have known anything about HGH or it's benefits if she didn't get the info from her hubby. Again, nice try, but it didn't work for me.

3.) Why would McNamee have told the truth about Pettitte and Knobloch and not Clemens? Roger didn't have an answer for this one. Instead, he relied on many of the republican committee members to attack McNamee's credibility. Even though McNamee is far from the most credible human being, I still can't come up with a good answer for this question either.

4.) Are we supposed to believe that noone told you about your name being in the Mitchell report before it's release and that George Mitchell wanted to speak with you prior to it's release? Clemens said on 60 minutes with mike Wallace that he did not speak to Mitchell before hand because his attourneys advised him against it. Yesterday, he claims that noone ever told him that mitchell wanted to speak to him. Whatever!

While Clemens may have been the best pitcher of many of our lifetimes, his pitch to the congressional committee yesterday was one that didn't even come close to the strike zone. It was, in fact, the worst of his career.

It is likely that Clemens will not face perjury charges simply because it would be difficult to prove. Furthermore, it is also very unlikely that he would be charged with using illegal drugs because law enforcement usually targets the dealers and not the users.

So what we are left with is the next Barry Bonds or even Pete Rose. We strongly assume his guilt which he continues to deny just as strongly. Even if he were to come clean like Rose did some 10 years after the fact, forgiveness is not an option. If that's what he wanted, he should have taken the Andy Pettitte, Jason Giambi or Rodney Harrisson route. After he was caught he should have come clean with whatever explanation or excuse he wanted to and things would have died down quickly. Not now. Not ever.

The next interesting moment in this whole ordeal will come 5 years from now when Clemens is eligible for hall of fame consideration. That's provided that he doesn't un-retire once again. What will the baseball writers do? Will they look past the alleged performance enhancing drug use and give him the needed 75% of the vote for induction or will he suffer a similar fate to that of Mark McGwire?

I don't know. But I can't wait to find out.