Roger Clemens Guilty as Sin in Perjury Trial

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright July 11, 2011
All Rights Reserved.                                         

         Defending perjury charges in federal court in Washington D.C. for lying to Congress about steroid use, six-time Cy Young-winning pitcher Roger Clemens blamed his ex-police officer trainer Brian McNamee for smearing his good name.  Clemens testified Feb. 13, 2008 before Rep. Henry Waxman’s (D-Calif.) House Government Oversight and Reform Committee that he didn’t use performance-enhancing drugs.  Clemens was asked to testify under oath after he was implicated Dec. 13, 2007 as a steroid user, among many other Major League ballplayers, in the U.S. Congressional Mitchell Report, stunning the Baseball world, considering Clemens a shoe-in for the Hall-of-Fame.  “This man [MacNamee] has never given me HGH or growth hormone or steroids or any kind,” testified Clemens, prompting today’s perjury trial.  Clemens didn’t have the common sense to take the 5th.

            Clemens was part of baseball’s steroid era, where Major League Baseball looked the other way while a substantial, if not majority, of its players used steroids under doctors’ orders for years.  It wasn’t until former Oakland A’s right-fielder Jose Canseco dropped the steroid bombshell in his 1995 book, “Juiced:  Rampant Roids, Smash Hits and How Baseball Got Big,” blowing the cover off MLB’s steroid scandal.  It took at least a year before Congress ordered former Sen. George Mitchell place his Mideast diplomacy hat on hold and investigate MLB’s budding steroid scandal.  “I trust him, put my faith in him and brought him around my family and my children,: said Clemens at his perjury trial, denying the government’s charges.  “MacNamee was good at what he did—helping me exercise, diet and stay in shape,” said Roger, denying that his former trainer injected him with performance enhancing drugs

                McNamee testified that Clemens gave him needles and steroids in 1998 while McNamee was hired as Toronto Blue Jay’s strength and conditioning coach.  During the 1998 season former Oakland A’s and St. Louis Cardinal slugger Mark McGwire and Chicago Cubs right fielder Sammy Sosa battled for the MLB home record.  When McGwire broke former New York Yankee Roger Maris’ single season homerun record Sept.l8, 1998, Clemens took special notice along with San Francisco Giant outfielder Barry Bonds.  Both Clemens’ and Bonds looked at McGwire and Sosa, asked a few questions and very quickly discovered their secret:  Anabolic steroids.  Bonds got involved with trainer Greg Andersen who was connected with Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative [BALCO], and physical therapy groups supply steroids and HGH to professional athletes.

                 While Bonds and Clemens’ bulked up and set records after watching McGwire and Sosa battle for MLB’s single-season homerun record, San Francisco Chronicle reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada began researching their book 2004 book, “Game of Shadows,” exposing Victor Conte’s BALCO drug group, implicated in supplying steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs to amateur and professional athletes.  When Bonds was convicted of one count of obstruction of justice April Feb. 13, 2011, Clemens has committed himself to the strategy of denying all allegations about steroid use.  McNamee said Clemens “has led a full-court attack on my credibility,” any used of performance enhancing drugs.  With so much damaging information about MLB’s steroid problem out in the public, Clemens’ continued denials seem less and less believable.

                 Clemens’ only remaining legal strategy is to keep denying, discredit McNamee and hope jurors’ don’t look at the bigger picture.  Federal investigators pressured McNamee to admit he supplied drugs to Clemens and other Major League ballplayers, including New York Yankee pitcher Andy Petite and second baseman Chuck Knoblauch.  “I have no reason to lie and every reason not to,” McNamee told Congress.  “My livelihood is in ruins, and it is painful beyond words to know that my name will be forever linked with scandal in the sport I love,” said McNamee.  Clemens legal team must convince the jury that McNamee fabricated evidence against Clemens to blackmail the multimillion dollar pitcher and getting fired from the Yankees.  Before the 2007  Mitchell Report and well after Canseco’s book “Juiced,” Clemens and McNamee were under investigation for steroids.

             Clemens’ perjury trial opens up one more time MLB’s dirty little secret about steroids and performance enhancing drugs.   After Bonds’ April 13 conviction for obstruction of justice, it was just a matter of time before Clemens took the hot seat July 6.  Clemens’ legal strategy of discrediting his long-time Yankee conditioning coach McNamee.  Given the well-publicized nature of MLB’s steroid scandal, it’s going to be a tough sell to jurors to overlook multiple witnesses with firsthand knowledge of Clemens steroid use.  No one doubts Clemens dominant place in Major League baseball’s steroid era.  Instead of accepting his place in history, Clemens continues to ask a skeptical jury to throw out common sense and ignore reality.  If convicted of all charges, Clemens faces up to 30 years in prison.  Given his stubborn denials, let’s hope the judge shows some pity.

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com.and author of Dodging the Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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