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Around Baseball: February 27, 2008 — Department Of Justice Will Investigate Clemens
By Administrator | February 27, 2008
Roger Clemens may yet live to rue the day he left the Boston Red Sox via free agency.
He once said he would never leave Boston — unless he went to a team in Texas. He crowed that he wanted to bring a championship to Boston. He said that he loved the fans in Boston and that they deserved a championship. He said a lot of things. Then, because of his antipathy he felt towards former Red Sox GM Dan Duquette, he turned his back on his team, his teammates and Red Sox Nation… simultaneously, he made a liar of himself by accepting the highest offer for his services — from the Blue Jays (last I checked, Toronto isn’t in Texas).
The Seven Deadly Sins include wrath and greed — two characteristics that Clemens demonstrated in making his decision to go to Toronto.
Do you believe in karma? It was in Toronto that Clemens met Brian McNamee and began the long journey towards his appearance before Congress. In literature and the movies, the devil always grants his victims their fondest wishes before he presents his bill for services (their souls). Clemens left Boston and went to Toronto, NY and Houston… and on the way collected millions of dollars, a handful of Cy Yound Awards, and his world series ring.
But when he left Boston he may have also lost his soul. Time will tell.
Within the next few years, Clemens (here modeling stripes that aren’t pinstripes) may find himself trading autographs for conjugal visits with Debbie
The US Department of Justice is now on Clemens’ case. The DOJ investigators will be aided by IRS special agent Jeff Novitzky — the guy who took down Olympian Marion Jones and former NFL star Dana Stubblefield. Team Clemens attorney Rusty Hardin once arrogantly proclaimed that The Rocket would “eat (Novitzky’s) lunch” if the IRS agent came after him…
I’ll bet you a million dollars Clemens now wishes Hardin had kept his bravado to himself. The attorney painted a big, red bullseye on his client’s back with that statement… of course, Harden has managed to to place a target on Roger’s back several times since becoming the face of Team Clemens. It is hard to imagine that Hardin could have done any worse in representing Clemens if he had been trying to screw things up. In trying to show off, he has embarrassed himself and doomed Clemens.
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What will the DOJ be looking at when it undertakes its investigation?
1) Clemens has denied attending a birthday bash at Jose Canseco’s house at which he and the “Juiced” author allegedly talked about steroids (as alleged by former trainer McNamee). Clemens attorney Lanny Breuer said that Team Clemens would “establish categorically, without question, that our client wasn’t there”. For his part, Canseco — who allegedly offered to keep Magglio Ordonez’ name out of his next book in exchange for financing for a movie project — has likewise denied Clemens was at the party. Yet Clemens’ former nanny has told investigators that Roger was at the party… and one of Canseco’s neighbors has reportedly given investigators a picture that is reported to show The Rocket and the neighbor together at the party.
[Did Clemens agree to finance Canseco's movie?]
2) Clemens alleges that Andy Pettitte “mis-remembers” a conversation they had in 1999 or 2000. Pettitte, Clemens’ best friend, has told investigators that The Rocket discussed taking HGH with him some time around the turn of the millennium. Clemens denied Pettitte’s allegation and said that his friend “mis-remembers” the conversation… Clemens claims he was talking about his wife. Of course, Debbie Clemens acknowledges using HGH, but has said she didn’t take it til a few years later (2003) when she was preparing for a photo shoot for Sports Illustrated.
So, Roger, if Pettitte is lying what’s his motivation?
The world now knows that Roger Clemens is a liar. He told CBS’ Mike Wallace he did not know about McNamee’s allegations prior to the issuance of The Mitchell Report, and said that is he had known of the allegations he would have met with Mitchell’s representatives “in a heartbeat”. We have subsequently learned that Clemens’ agents knew about McNamee’s allegations EIGHT days before the report was released. Under oath, Clemens recanted the BS he told Wallace and testified that he knew about the claims by December 9th at the latest — at least four full days before the report was made public.
Amazing what taking an oath can do for a guy’s memory, isn’t it?
And then we have the line from The Rocket’s opening statement from the congressional hearing: “I have tried to model my baseball career, and indeed my entire life, on the premise that ‘your body is your temple”. Within a couple of hours he testified that he had received assorted injections of painkillers and had eaten the painkiller, Vioxx, “like they were Skittles”. Interesting interpretation of a ‘temple’, don’t you think?
His body is “The Temple of Doom”, I guess.
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What an appropriate concept to end this article with: doom. In the Indiana Jones trilogy (soon to become four), the word “doom” refers to ‘death’… but the word had other meanings as well: condemnation, judgement, judicial decree and penalty (among others). How appropriate that those words are now inextricably linked to Clemens as a result of the streroids saga.
Topics: Around Baseball |
