Clemens to answers questions again
Posted by: Peter Abraham - Posted in Misc on Jan 06, 2008 
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Roger Clemens will conduct an interview with reporters in Houston at 5 p.m. (EST) tomorrow. No word yet on the format.
Meanwhile, the rival lawyers have weighed in on the 60 Minutes segment.
Earl Ward (McNamee): “I thought it was an impassioned, disingenuous and desperate plea.”
Rusty Hardin (Clemens): “Anyone not persuaded by that interview is not a well person.”
Kind of amusing that Clemens talked about the cost of a lawsuit considering he has made about $150 million in his career.
There is no answer here. Some people will believe Clemens, others not. We await either a smoking gun or some sort of revealing answer from Clemens.
its interesting you brought up his cost comment.. everyone is KILLING him for that.. to me i thought he was referring to the emotional, time and just draining physical cost it would take to go through awhole trial that is all circumstantial.
clemens def seemed shaky at times, but the one thing i totally agree with him on , whether he is innocent or guilty, no matter what he does.. its wrong.
I kind of figured he meant he could spend all the money on legal bills to sue, but will it even matter? How do you prove something never happened when so many people have already decided it did with no evidence?
Ummm, what sort of revealing answer are you looking for? The guys said it isn’t true… what else is he supposed to do?
He sounded good on 60 Minutes. BUT — Lidocaine is a LOCAL anesthetic. It’s what the dentist injects into your gums before working on them. So unless his “joint” that he was getting Lidocaine for is located in his butt, he is mistaken. That is a real problem.
I wasn’t convinced. But who cares. I can’t believe Congress continues to waste time on this when there is a war going on.
Clemens never said where he was injected. Only that he was.
“Lidocaine is for my joints.” He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. It’s inconceivable that he would let this guy inject his knee or elbow or shoulder with a local anesthetic. Inconceivable.
Lidocaine is usually used to numb an area before the next injection or minor surgical procedure.
Joe Morales: Didn’t Clemens have groin issues, though?
I’m not a doctor, obviously, but they are located in semi similar areas.
Honestly I could care less. I didn’t care about Bonds and I care less about this because I was never that naive. Count me lucky I guess.
I’m 99% sure when I got a “cortisone shot” in my shoulder it was actually a mixture of cortisone & lidocaine… so maybe that’s what he meant?
Rebecca: Wouldn’t inject the groin either. Clemens said “joints.” And JJNJ is right, you get cortisone (a steroid) + lidocaine injections into joints. Not lidocaine alone. Again, he would not allow this guy to inject his joints. That’s why major league ballplayers go to orthopedic surgeons, to get the cortisone/lidocaine joint injections.
” “Lidocaine is for my joints.†He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. It’s inconceivable that he would let this guy inject his knee or elbow or shoulder with a local anesthetic.”
since you’ve thrown so many pitches and know what pain in your elbow feels like after throwing, i guess you know that clemens arm didn’t feel better after injections of lidocaine in the area around the joint.
and you know that because…?
Why would McNamee tell the truth about Pettitte and lie about Clemens? It doesn’t make sense.
Joe: Okay, I didn’t know that. Thanks for enlightening me!
Randy: it’s too bad Wallace didn’t know enough to pursue that line of questioning about where the injection sites were. But a doc doesn’t inject the area “around the joint” with lidocaine to make it feel better. If there is inflammation, you inject it with cortisone and lidocaine.
WALLACE Did your former trainer, Brian McNamee ever inject you with anything?
CLEMENS Yes he did.
WALLACE What?
CLEMENS Lidocaine, and B12. It’s for my joints and and B12 I take still today. A lot of trainers—
he said” it’s for my joints”. he didn’t say he injected into the joint. maybe it was injected into the tissue around the joint. why wouldn’t a pain killer make a painful elbow feel better?
joe morales-
you said clemens explanation was ” inconceivable”.
those are strong words so i’m asking you to back up how you know what someone whose arm hurts from throwing a baseball would do to make it feel better. how do you know that lidocaine wouldn’t make clemens arm feel better?
it’s a pain killer isn’t it? clemens arm was in pain. you don’t see the possibility that a pain killer might make the arm feel better?
Randy: There are three joints that are routinely injected — knees, shoulders and elbows. The injections are cortisone and lidocaine together. The reason they are used together is that lidocaine lasts about 2-3 hours while cortisone’s effects last for days. Even if he got injected “around” the elbow, specifically maybe for a tennis elbow, Clemens would know enough to know that he needed the cortisone too. I’m guessing that he has had that before by his ortho doc. If he only got the lidocaine, the pain would come back by the time he got off the bus. My guess is that he thought he was getting lidocaine but got something else.
Randy: He said he took a Toradol shot to be able to pitch a big game. Toradol is a systemic pain killer. Lidocaine is a local anesthetic.
Interesting comment by Rusty Hardin. I guess I’m not a well person.
There was an orthopedist on Mike and the Dog the other day discussing the fact that lidocaine isn’t usually used by itself. I wish my orthopedist had tripled the amount when I got a cortisone shot in my shoulder last week.. Damn that hurts.
Drew: Hurts just thinking about it
O.K. Just watched the tail end of the interview with Mr. Mel. He doesn’t know Roger, Andy, and McNamee from Larry, Curly, and Mo. He’s a pretty good judge of character, so I asked him if he honestly thinks Roger did it. He said yeah. I clarified, from this interview? He’s said no, he just thinks he did it. Of course we agreed that it wasn’t long-term use because his body would be shot.
Me? He was pretty convincing, but the odds are against him being truthful.
mel-
is that short for melanie?
the live 60 minutes blog was hilarious, pete. thanks for that.
now, off to enjoy the fifth and final season of the wire.
no.
sorry, the Mr. Mel confused me
@ Joe Morales
he never said he got lidocane injected in the buttocks, he just said he got injected with it, end sentence.
“The reason they are used together is that lidocaine lasts about 2-3 hours”
2-3 hours is enough to 5-6 innings. so you’re basically saying it could help.
it sounds like you know that cortisone is only used a 2-3 times a year at most, so it makes sense that clemens would use lidocaine for 2-3 hour relief on a more frequent basis . maybe even every start.
you are obviously in a heath related field, but don’t want to say it.
the only thing i’m challenging is you saying” inconceivable”.
Mr. Mel=hubby
mel-
Gotcha! That was what I thought, so Melissa then?
randy l,
You’re absolutely right. We as fans, don’t know a 1/10th of what goes on in baseball. I learned a lot of things from the interview.
These players get paid a lot, they’re passionate, and, yes, they will do anything to get on the field.
As much as we’d like to think we know it all, we don’t really know anything. So, we really have to watch our assumptions. Sometimes there’s a logical explanation for things.
Everyone’s asking why McNamee would tell the truth about Pettitte but lie about Clemens. Maybe he told the truth about Pettitte to give credibility to his lie about Clemens?
Not saying I believe or don’t believe Clemens. Just throwing it out there.
lol, Buddy. Let’s just say ‘Mel’ because there’s only so many variations and you’d get it eventually.
Hey, isn’t there a book, “Bud, Not Buddy”?
mel-
I guess my point was that I thought you were male, “not that there’s anything wrong with that”. No hard feelings right?
Good point Andrea. It’s really to hard to believe anything McNamee says. He sounds like he will do whatever it takes to save his own butt.
Buddy,
HaHa. Guess you missed the time when Brandon assumed the same thing and I told him, “Mel is not short for Melvin”. But yeah, there’s nothing wrong with that.
New guest blog
mel-I’m psyched! How about you?-
i’m not saying that everything a player does makes sense, but when a player is hurting they will try different things until they find something to stop the pain. maybe lidocaine worked for clemens.
look at what posada does when he has sore hands. that may make no sense at all to most of us, but he still does it. just because a doctor wouldn’t advise it doesn’t mean a player won’t try it or do it.
i actually never really liked clemens that much, but i’m giving him the inch he’s asked for because of respect for what he’s done in the game. he deserves the benefit of the doubt. if it’s so obvious that he did steroids there should be some other evidence beside one former trainer who was going to go to jail on charges separate from clemens if he didn’t come up with something good.
people have to challenge the accusers testimony to be fair. he has to back it up. so far he hasn’t come up with anything except his word it happened. there has to be more than that.
Randy:
I respect your point. I think that the majority of people assume Clemens used, but unlike with Bonds, McNamee’s allegation is the sole transgression on Roger’s record.
Bonds had the balco deal, the subsequent grand jury testimony and the upcoming trial for his life. There was also the drama surrounding Greg Anderson, the amphetamines, the testimony of his former mistress, etc. etc. Not to mention the guy is an absolute jerk.
Whereas Bonds is cooked, Clemens offers some people the opportunity to say “Well, he did so much for baseball and he seems like a good guy.” Just like I just explained above.
Bottom line: the difference between Bonds and Clemens is not race. It’s a huge gap in the sympathy factor as well as the shady origins of the accusation. Which essentially come from an incomplete report based on the testimony of two men working in one city. Imagine if trainers/distributors in LA, Chicago, Boston and Atlanta were included in the report. Not only would it bring up new players, it may collaborate or detract from McNamee’s claims.
not sure if it was posted here on the thread yet, but Clemens has officially filed a defamation lawsuit against McNamee in Texas. It was reported on Mike and Mike on ESPN radio.
I don’t believe Clemens, but it’s interesting to note that he’s willing to partake in a polygraph test..
I wonder if that will ever happen.
Let’s start out with a few truths as established by th pro-Clemens-Used Crowd.
1) If an accusation is raised against you and you fail to sue the accuser, that establishes conclusively that the accusation is true. This is true regardless of the cost, time, and effort that goes into starting a lawsuit. In this case, Clemens could sue McNamee, but to what end? Money? If Clemens is successful (wins money against McNamee) that definitively concludes the matter? Right.
2) Once a person has established one truth, all future statements and accusations must be true. McNamee was correct about Pettitte, therefore he must be correct about Clemens. Incidentally, I just ate a bagel. And at 6am, I bench-pressed 2,000 pounds. Don’t believe me? Well, I have video of me eating the bagel. That concludes the matter on the bench press, right?
Roger stated that he will not pitch again. He hinted at what his next venture will be when he spoke of pulling tractors with his teeth.
Why would McNamee tell the truth about Pettitte and lie about Clemens? It doesn’t make sense.
——————————————————–
If McNamee needed a big fish, it sure does. Do you think he would get caught in ‘other’ lies and blow himself up? When a good con man is conning you, 95% of what he says is true or he has no credibility.
I’m not saying Mcnamee lied. I’m saying IF he did lie about Clemens, then he would make sure there were NO OTHER lies he could get caught in.
If McNamee gets caught in 2 lies or more, his whole testimony is blown.
As I said, I don’t know about Roger. But even if everything else he said was true, it doesn’t reflect on what he said about Roger. After all, if the Mitchell report did NOT have Clemens and Andy, it would have been totally laughed at. And Andy’s offense is not that bad. The Clemens name really the only thing that gives this report any teeth.
From the MLB website:
• The lawsuit includes a quote from a conversation Hardin’s private investigators had with McNamee after the Mitchell Report was made public. The lengthy McNamee quote indicates he was persuaded to talk about Clemens after a federal prosecutor and agent threatened him.
• According to the lawsuit, McNamee told Hardin’s investigators a federal prosecutor and federal agent talked about how he already had two strikes against him for possessing and delivering steroids and could get a third — lying to a federal agent — and go to jail. He said it was soon after that he was asked, “So what about Clemens?”
I mean, you really don’t believe Clemens (or the biggest fish they could find not named Bonds) was targeted?
I find it revealing that you brought up the cost of a law suit; that is, a man’s willingness to spend money as the true measurement of his sincerity to clear his name. Unlike yourself, Clemens is from the traditional south (Houston is considered more Southern than Western) and, as such would have a different viewpoint of matters such as this.
1. First of all, it is obvious that he is deeply offended and dismayed that his word was questioned at all, especially without a modicum of proof and on the word of a convicted felon.
2. To sue someone in the south is considered bad form, as in a self-imposed act of dragging one’s family name through the street of public opinion. His stance would be he should not have to go to court to defend his word; the old southern adage that one’s word is one’s bond is in play here.
3. Lastly, his seemingly beside-the-point story concerning pitching injured, and even going so far as to take legal pain substances that could now possibly be harmful to his health is telling; it reveals the full magnitude of his sense of anger and betrayal after giving years and years of loyal support.
The truth is, you are dealing with a cross-cultural response that you do not understand or, I suspect, even wish to understand. You are out for blood or submission, possibly both, and for you folks north of the Potomac River that is always the bottom line.
Southron
Pete-
Let them ask Clemens what color the B-12 solution is when drawn up in a syringe. It’s red!
Ask Clemens to show us the results of his last complete cardiac workup, including echocardiogram. If he’s so concerned about what he puts in his body, he should be concerned about what possible damage he did to his cardiac muscle by taking steroids.
For his sake, I hope he wasn’t lying, because right now he’s taking the same path Michael Vick took by deny, deny, deny back in April. If he had come clean then, I’m convinced he would have had a football suspension without jail time.
Johnny Martorano is now a household name thanks to Roger’s interview with Mike Wallace. His segment with Steve Kroft was the headliner of the hour.
Southron – That was an intelligent and thoughtful post. Many here have already judged Roger, and simply interpret every word they read and everything they see in a way to validate their own conclusions.
Pete, whether Clemens is innocent or guilty of taking PEDs, I don’t know. But why would your presumption of innocence or guilt be different for Clemens than for McNamee?
You take McNamee at only his word (not under oath, but under the threat of prosecution), but you need a “smoking gun” or “revealing answer” from Clemens to believe that what he says is true.
I don’t get it?
That goes for most of the posters on this blog as well.
You are all telling me that you believe McNamee before you believe Clemens?
ESPN investigative reporter T.J. Quinn is saying that Brian McNamee’s attorney Earl Ward will be filing a countersuit against Roger Clemens soon, based on certain denials in the 60 Minutes interview aired last night.
Specifically, they apparently have documentation that McNamee actually had a telephone conversation with Clemens before the Mitchell Report was released last month, in which McNamee told Clemens that his name was in the report.
I wonder if McNamee and his lawyers have similar documentation of the gist of the “emotional” conversation McNamee and Clemens had this last Saturday night, too?