Happy Valentine’s Day, Mrs. Clemens…

When the kids went to bed for their nap, I was going to use that moment to catch up on some shows that were stashed on my DVR. I had few episodes of Supernatural that he been neglected, but then I remembered that Roger Clemens was going to testify before congress today. I watched what was three out of four and a half hours of testimony from both Clemens and his former trainer, Mr. McNamee who is quoted in the infamous Mitchell report to have injected Clemens during the later years of his a career with Steroids and Human Growth Hormone (HGH). As a huge baseball fan, I have taken a keen interest in the aftermath of the Mitchell report, which I took the time to sit down and read most of since it’s release.

What I watched today on various sports channels here in Canada was the equivalent of a highway multi-car pile up. Both Clemens and McNamee both testified (under oath) and repeated their stories. McNamee repeated that he injected Clemens over fifteen times with illegal performance inhancing drugs, and Roger responded by saying that he never took any such drugs. Someone is lying, and the end result might be purjury charges for one of these men. Yet today this became much more than just a your word versus mine work kind of issue. Over the weekend, former New York Teammate Andy Pettitte testified in a close session that Clemens told him in 1999 that he did us HGH, basically backing up McNamee’s story. When asked to respond to that statement, Clemens chose to not attach Pettitte’s credibilty and said repeatedly that Andy misunderstood their conversation and that he never said that to him.

As the testimony went on, I was getting tired of listening to Clemens speak. Whenever asked something, McNamee gave quick and very precise answers and did his best to comment on what was being asked. Clemens has a stump speech, obviously prewritten that he used whenever he was asked a question he didn’t like. A lawyer who worked with Mitchell to write up the big report, he stated that the Union was told many times that they wanted to speak with Clemens to give him a chance to respond to allegations that were made against him. Clemens denied being told about this, and that he was never informed that he was asked to speak with Mitchell. When one of the representatives asked him if he was disappointed with how the Union handled this given that he has taken the biggest hit, he went back to his stump answer, saying “I believe MLB and the Union are making steps in the right direction to clean up our tgame and make sure this doesn’t happen again… blah, blah, blah!” That wasn’t the question, which was did the Union possibly screw you over because they didn’t want to co-operate with Mitchell?

Then came the most dispicable moment of the hearing, when Clemens was asked about his wife using HGH in 2003. Before I say anything else, there is a small legal timbit that says spouses are not obligated to answer any questions about the activities about their significant others. Roger could have looked that congressman in the eye and said, “I do not have to answer that.” and he would have been right. That’s what I would have said if I was underoath and someone was asking me to say something bad about my wife, I’m not legally obligated to say squat.

But did Roger do that? Unfortunately for Mrs. Clemens, he did not. Her hubby admitted today in front of congress and on national TV that his wife Debbie did indeed take HGH to help get her in shape for her 2003 Sports Illustrated swimsuit photo shoot. What a guy, eh? He’ll fight tooth and nail and to the bitter end to save his own image to the ends of the earth, but his wife? Hey man, that’s her problem. After tossing his wife under the bus, who’s next? The kids? The family dog? Who else is he going to blame for his problem before he just fesses up?

Let me say this: if I did that to my wife, she’d be filing separation papers the next day… and my clothes would be out on the front lawn. Even if (by some warped miracle) I managed to get back into the house, I’d still be sleeping on the couch until Christmas. And tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. How do you say ‘I love you’ on the big V-day the day after tossing someone under the bus during a televised Congressional hearing? Something tells me he might need those lawyers long after this mess is finished… but that’s just me.

Peter