Tough All Day … naturally?
-
- December
- 24
Ah, the irony. The Roger Clemens video statement is on his personal website. The site also has a shop that sells his “Tough All Day” t-shirts.
It’s the same shirt Clemens gave to all the Yankees this season. They’re a testament to his work ethic. Talk about a collector’s item.
This entry was posted
on Monday, December 24th, 2007 at 12:07 am by Peter Abraham.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Share and Enjoy: 
| 
Print This Post
| 
Email This Post
Advertisement
Peter Abraham
Thats funny, maybe it should say, tough til ‘98.
That is hysterical.
It’s becoming a punch line.
Pete, I love your blog and I read it everyday, but I cannot believe how unfair you have been to Clemens since the Mitchell Report came out. The evidence was damaging, but you haven’t even considered the possibility that Clemens is telling the truth. I just read an article on espn.com about McNamee’s troubled past and it certainly doesn’t seem implausible that he would lie about injecting Clemens with steroids and HGH to get back at him for firing him. According to the article McNamee used to refer to himself as Dr. McNamee, PhD. He received that “PhD” at Columbus University in Louisiana, which “now operates out of Mississippi, after the state of Louisiana shut it down in 2001 for being a ‘diploma mill,’ churning out degrees to people who did little or no academic work.” Also, according to the article, he was arrested for allegedly raping a woman, who had “a near fatal dose of GHB,” a date rape drug. He also reportedly repeatedly lied to the police investigators who questioned him about the incident.
I’m not saying Clemens is innocent, but I suggest that you do the responsible thing as a reporter and take Jeter’s advice and don’t rush to make a judgment on Clemens (which obviously you already have). I have been very disappointed that you seem to outright dismiss Clemens’ side of the story. It’s pretty sad that a man’s reputation is being dragged through the mud because the public and the press is blindly willing to believe the accusations of a low life like McNamee.
I suggest you read this story and maybe you’ll see what type of guy McNamee really is:
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3153874
Dustin:
I’ve never defended McNamee. I don’t know the guy but everything I know is that he is a bad guy.
However, when he testified to Mitchell it was with the knowledge that any lies would result in his having broke a deal with the Feds and he would go to jail.
Meanwhile, it stretches the imagination that McNamee gave drugs to Pettitte and not to Clemens.
I agree with Peter.
Dustin, leave logic and fairness behind. Petty jokes rule this little universe.
The joke is that players think they can prevent any type of investigation into the PED era, but then they pretend to be outraged when they aren’t given the benefit of any remaining doubt about their drug usage, which is really funny, in a pathetic sort of way.
Peter,
McNamee is saying he injected Clemens at Clemens’ apartment (presumably when no one else was there). If he’s lying, there’s probably no way to prove it. In return for cooperating with a private investigation, McNamee is avoiding jail. That’s a strong motive to lie, especially if he concocts lies that cannot be disproven. Also, thanks to the LATimes’ erroneous report, everyone thought Clemens did steroids. I can see the feds pressuring McNamee to give him up.
Clearly McNamee is a liar, either he lied to the press when he denied Clemens did steroids, or he lied to Mitchell. I doubt we’ll ever know for sure if McNamee or Clemens is lying now, but I think you’re kidding yourself when you say McNamee had no motive to lie.
Peter,
McNamee is saying he injected Clemens at Clemens’ apartment (presumably when no one else was there). If he’s lying, there’s probably no way to prove it. In return for cooperating with a private investigation, McNamee is avoiding jail. That’s a strong motive to lie, especially if he concocts lies that cannot be disproven.
Obviously, you know very little about federal investigations. McNamee faces jail time if he lied to investigators. That is the strongest motivation not to lie. Plus he told the truth about Pettitte.
The person who has the strongest motivation to lie is Clemens. If he did PEDs, as seems very likely, he will no longer be considered the great pitcher ever, and may not even get into the Hall of Fame.
I think it’s quite clear that Pettitte would never have done PEDs, especially with McNamee’s help, if Clemens hadn’t done the same.
The person who is kidding himself is you.
For all save the most heinous of crimes, there are statutes of limitations. This kind of retroactive steroid use needs one stat. Certainly those dealing to children, as with any other illegal activity, should be targeted and not athletes. Though most people perceive them as too highly paid & often possessed of narrow intellect, they are struggling workers, none the less, just hoping to keep a job. A job, which unlike most of us, is in the public eye & open for criticism by both the experts & the fools.
Years from now the Mitchell Report will be thought of as that botched up, full of holes report with beyond belief bias.
ROGER DIDNT DO IT….AND I STAND BEHIND HIM…
Tough in the Butt
Everyone who says that since Pettitte did HGH then OBVIOUSLY Roger did them is a complete fool. That is the worst reason in the world to accuse anyone of doing anything….”since one guy did it the other must have 2…a joke…Clemens is innocent in my eyes. Where is the proof? Where are the checks, receipts etc.?? I know most writers and Yankee fans don’t like Roger and love the fact that he is being brought down with this but it is sad that you guys are taking the word of a rape-artist turned rat over one of the good guys in the game who has had a tremendous career and has done good for the game of baseball.
Hope you all take a look in the mirror and realize you are taking the word of a crimninal who was forced to testify.
Show some guts!!
I could see McNamee giving one drugs and not the other, but why would he lie about one and tell the truth about the other? I want to give rocket the benefit of the doubt, but…
I wonder why only athletes are singled out for testing. I think reporters and owners and politicians should be tested too. Think about it, the fate of our country in the hands of politicians and we have no idea what drugs or alcohol they are taking. Heck of a lot more dangerous than an athlete.
They’re all guilty! Start from there and go on. Until MLB cracks down, this is the STEROID era, get used to it.
Everyone who says that since Pettitte did HGH then OBVIOUSLY Roger did them is a complete fool. That is the worst reason in the world to accuse anyone of doing anything….”since one guy did it the other must have 2…a joke…Clemens is innocent in my eyes. Where is the proof? Where are the checks, receipts etc.?? I know most writers and Yankee fans don’t like Roger and love the fact that he is being brought down with this but it is sad that you guys are taking the word of a rape-artist turned rat over one of the good guys in the game who has had a tremendous career and has done good for the game of baseball.
Hope you all take a look in the mirror and realize you are taking the word of a crimninal who was forced to testify.
Show some guts!!
That’s a pretty comical post.
The reason that Pettitte matters in this case is that his admission lends credibility to McNamee, who was vetted by the most competent assessors of criminal conduct and truth telling in the country.
When you couple that proven credibility with the manifest fact that Pettitte became a workout disciple of Clemens, who he idolized since he was a kid, it doesn’t take much of a leap of logic to reach the very reasonable conclusion that since Pettitte was using Clemens’s trainer, who turned him on to HGH, it’s more likely than not that Clemens did the similar things, especially when you factor in the spike in his stats late in his career after a period when some thought he was done.
The idea that you can’t take the word of a criminal is ridiculous when you consider that a substantial portion of the people in jail right now were put there largely based on the testimony of criminals. That’s the America way of justice.
Why do you hate America?
whoa,
I assume you’re kidding about the why do you hate america bit, but regardless, you missed the point of my post. I realize McNamee would go to jail if he lied, but only if they can prove he lied, hence what I was saying about the unprovable nature of his accusations.
And to answer your later post, yes there are many criminals in jail based on the word of other criminals, but in those cases the accused had a right to face the accuser, and cross-examine him under oath to expose his bias. None of those protections were afforded to Clemens in the Mitchell report, and Mitchell glossed over McNamee’s prior inconsistent statemens and omitted entirely the rest of his character flaws (the accusation of rape, for example).
All we have here is McNamee’s word against Clemens’, and you can decide who you want to believe, but I don’t think there’s any objective evidence to support that belief either way.
When McNamee gets a book deal, then you’ll see what a strong motivation he has had to lie. Nobody really cares about Andy Pettitte juicing, but he can sell a book dishing all the dirt on Clemens. I don’t know if Clemens juiced or not, but the idea that this guy is telling the truth because the feds told him to is laughable. Of course, I’ve read tons of stories about drug informants constantly giving bad information, so I’m jaded.
And if you know anything about steroids, the types of drugs and the injection patterns cited by this guy make little sense and would help Clemens very little if at all.
What’s really funny is this post above another that has a picture of a relative wearing a Rodney Harrison jersey. You know a guy who was actually caught using HGH.
whoa,
I assume you’re kidding about the why do you hate america bit, but regardless, you missed the point of my post. I realize McNamee would go to jail if he lied, but only if they can prove he lied, hence what I was saying about the unprovable nature of his accusations.
And to answer your later post, yes there are many criminals in jail based on the word of other criminals, but in those cases the accused had a right to face the accuser, and cross-examine him under oath to expose his bias. None of those protections were afforded to Clemens in the Mitchell report, and Mitchell glossed over McNamee’s prior inconsistent statemens and omitted entirely the rest of his character flaws (the accusation of rape, for example).
All we have here is McNamee’s word against Clemens’, and you can decide who you want to believe, but I don’t think there’s any objective evidence to support that belief either way.
Here’s the difference between the he said, she said thing.
Unlike Clemens, McNamee’s “word” was obtained by under oath by investigators who are skilled at assessing the truth or falsity of confessions, which means that he was subjected to intense scrutiny, probing questions, as well as fact-checking, and as I said, if he is lying he is faced with the possibility of going to jail.
Clemens, in stark contrast, will not go under oath, he has not been subject to intense questioning by law enforcement personnel, nor will he go to jail if he is lying.
Instead he wants to be interviewed by a 90 year old Mike Wallace, whose own son, Fox News’ Chris Wallace, publicly said last year that his father had lost his intellectual edge and should retire.
As for the ability to confront one’s accuser, the MLBPA never offered to cooperate with an investigation if certain conditions, like that one, were met. Instead, all they have tried to do is obstruct any attempt to uncover the truth about the PED era. So they can’t, on the one hand, decry the process, then on the other hand, not do anything but impede the only fact finding process, and remain credible.
So it’s hardly Clemens’s word v. McNamee’s word in equipoise.
When you balance the costs and benefits, as well as the surrounding circumstances, McNamee appears to be much, much more credible, because he has been tested while facing great jeopardy.
And btw, If Clemens wants to confront McNamee and his character issues, all he has to do is bring him to court.
Andy Pettitte used HGH = Roger Clemens used steroids
my best friend robbed a bank = I robbed a bank
Bin Laden = Saddam Hussein
I do hope my life is just this simple.