That's a wrap, folks

I'm exhausted. Trying to work, listening to a congressional hearing and attempting to synthesize and write coherently is darn tiring.

Lots of good summaries already out, so I thoroughly recommend taking a read from this group (will update as I get others to add):

1. Analysis: The Clemens & McNamee Hearing (by buddy Alan Schwarz, NYTimes)
2. What A Day! (by Shysterball)
3. Round 2: Clemens vs. McNamee (Jayson Stark, ESPN)
4. Coverage of the Congressional Hearing on Steroids (Sliding into Home)
5. Rick Carpiniello’s world of sports (LoHud's blog)
6. Pettitte wasn't in room, but his words carried much of the day (Gene Wojo, ESPN)
7. Pro-Clemens or anti-Clemens? Might depend on political party (Mike Fish, ESPN)
8. Hits and misses; Best and worst moments from the hearings (Tom Verducci, SI)
9. Clemens stands tall on Capitol Hill (Michael McCann, SI Legal Analyst)
10. A day to misremember (David Epstein, SI)
11. Clemens, McNamee face off in D.C. (Bryan Hoch, MLB.com)
12. It's A Wrap (Sean Devaney, Sporting News)
13. Clemens shelled by Congress (Dan Wetzel, Yahoo!)
14. Clemens, McNamee take hits at hearing (Jeff Passan, Yahoo!)

My thoughts, in short-cut, take-the-easy-way-out, made-for-TV bulleted form:

• McNamee was hit harder than I expected; I expected him to be carried into the proceedings like Madeline Kahn as "Empress Nympho" in History of the World, Part 1
• Clemens was hit less than I expected but still took a ton of punches
• Wish I could claim this as my own, but re: Clemens: "Isn't frequent lip-licking a well-known indication of untruthfulness? Guy was licking his lips like bacon was cooking."
• Both came out looking less-than-credible
• Waxman's closing monologue in which he apologized to McNamee was unnecessary and totally biased
• Nanny-gate will be next on the docket
• Pettitte looks good, or as good as one can look emerging from this pit of filth
• What was Rep. Norton saying when she said: "Mr. Clemens, all I can say is, I'm sure you're going to heaven"?
• Davis, Burton, Isso & Clay and other Republicans look like big Clemens supportors
• Waxman, Cummings and other Democrats look like McNamee supporters
• Taking a bi-partisan stance here is so pathetic, it sickens me. End of politics
• Rusty Hardin looks like a madman when angry. Wish we saw more of that
• I have no idea why Debbie Clemens was holding one yellow rose
• I still cannot understand how/why Roger was allowed to politick around Capitol Hill over the last week, speaking in private with all the representatives that were to be questioning him today. Isn't that akin "tampering"? No matter what you call it, I thought it was more than strange
• I can't see, for the life of me, how either Clemens or McNamee will ever be convicted of perjury, or that it will even go to court. So many holes in both stories. Maybe the attorneys will dive deeper into Nanny-Gate to drag this out longer. Billable hours, baby!
• I hope this is it, but I fear it's not
• I wonder how Pettitte will respond when he steps on the mound. Is he strong enough, mentally? Will the fans embrace his honesty or boo his inclusion as an HGH user?
• Pitchers and catchers report tomorrow. Amen and hallelujah!

For those of you who chose to read along with my ramblings today, thanks for your time. I'm tired but I enjoyed it. Hope you did, too.

Anyone know where to get a shot of b12 or HGH to make me feel more youthful? (cue laughtrack)

Pettitte's affidavit

Sorry, I'm on an earnings conf call so the blogging has had to cease for the time being...work and all...

But, saw this so here's the link to Pettitte's affidavit.

Good boys go to heaven?

Said Rep. Norton:

"Mr. Clemens, all I can say is, I'm sure you're going to heaven."

I guess Clemens didn't give her some autographs last week, or didn't agreed to appear at her grandkids birthday party.

EDIT: This was about the strangest quip I heard all day

Zingeroo!

Rep. Isso had this to open, initially bashing McNamee:

I guess PhD stands for "piled higher, deeper"

Zingeroo!

He added, in closing: "Shame on you". Good one for Clemens.

Fireworks!

Nanny-gate has turned this humdrum testimony on it's ear!!! Rusty is standing and yelling, pointing his finger in Congress. Great theater!

Clemens contacted his former nanny before Congress could get to her. They are calling 'impropriety'!

Clemens is "offended" by the accusations.

Good times on the Hill!

Rep. Clay "hearts" Clemens

12:35pm
Staggering comment: Rep. Clay replayed a question from another representative (Capuano of Massachusetts): "Roger, what uniform are you wearing to the HOF?" He believes Clemens completely and entirely.

I had expected an all-out Clemens beat-down today. It's been, at worst, even. I might even go so far as to say that McNamee has taken more shots than Clemens. McNamee's credibility has been blown to bits.

Clemens looks like the winner today, so far, in my eyes.


UPDATE: #1: Stark had this quote regarding Clay's comments: There are times and places for hero worship. This hearing wasn't one of them. We charge Clay with inappropriate pandering. What's the federal punishment for that?

Nicely done, Mr. Stark.

Roger's butt causes reasonable doubt

Seems that the abscess on Clemens' butt is causing reasonable doubt. Conflicting medical reports. Rep. Davis "protecting" Clemens from answering about a medical report he has yet to review. Tide turning.

Again, score another for Clemens. Enough reasonable doubt and maybe this doesn't get to a perjury case....

"This makes your case inconsistent" - Rep. Davis (to McNamee)

Lawyers out there... help?

UPDATE #1: With a BIG THANKS to Shysterball, in an email, said the following: "That said, I think that McNamee has gotten a bit of a free ride a bit too long for the simple reason that he isn't as newsworthy as Clemens. When you get down to a testimony situation, his previous lies just utterly sink him. In the law, credibility is the only thing that matters."

Score one for Roger

2/13/08, 10:40am

Sen. Burton CLEARLY is on Clemens' side, skewering McNamee repeatedly. This, to me, is a STUNNING turn.

Burton called/proved McNamee a liar.

Incredible.

UPDATE #1: Jayson Stark captured the give-and-take between Burton and McNamee and it's brutal:

12:14 p.m. ET Rough time for McNamee.
Rep. Dan Burton was all over McNamee, wondering about a question many of us have asked:

Why would he ever have held onto vials and syringes for five years that could implicate a friend?

"He was my employer," McNamee answered.

Burton: "You do this to all your employers?"

McNamee stammered an answer about how he'd "done things before for other people and gotten hurt by it, so I might as well hold onto it."

Burton asked why he didn't give this evidence to the Mitchell investigators immediately.

"Because I felt horrible being in the position I was in," McNamee said.

Burton: "You kept needles for five years ... and kept working for him ... and now you say you felt bad?"

McNamee: "No, sir."

Burton: "My goodness."

Not the pinnacle of McNamee's day.

Rusty chokes on own words

Looks like Rusty Hardin must be choking on his own words! Remember this: The fine line between bold and stupid

And now we hear from Clemens' agent, good ole Rusty Hardin, that Clemens is not worried about whatever Pettitte might say when he testifies, well, I think that's just false bravado. There's a fine line between being bold/aggressive and stupid. I think Clemens & Co. are crossing the line. Why even make the statements. Just keep quiet until required to talk. They've talked enough. No need to say any more.

Clemens’s lawyer said Pettitte would help, not hurt, his former teammate. “We have nothing to fear about what Andy may testify to,” Rusty Hardin, Clemens’s lawyer in Houston, said in a telephone interview. “Everyone says Andy is honest; we have no reason to believe he will lie.”

...

What if 1) Everyone universally agrees that Pettitte IS honest and 2) He tells the truth and that contradicts everything Clemens has said? Then what, Rusty? An indictment, I guess. Or, are you going to accuse Pettitte of lying under oath?

Rather than accusing Pettitte of lying, Roger's telling everyone Pettitte misunderstood, or "mis-remembers". I had to check to see if that was even a word (it is, sadly).

More later.

Yanking Wang around

CLEMENS-FREE ENTRY

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Pardon the horrible double entendre, but I think everyone has to make some sort of lame quip on Chien Ming Wang's name at some point. There, I got it over with.

HYPOCRISY ALERT:

Why aren't the Yanks interested in locking up Wang in a longer term contract? Why the hesitation? A shoulder situation in 2005? Around 200 IP the last 2 years dispells that worry, methinks.

Said yesterday in an article:

"I want to," Wang said of inking a multi-year contract. "They told me it's not the time because for pitchers it's hard to stay healthy."

Smacks of hypocrisy since they were strongly giving consideration to giving Johan 6 years, but not Wang? Not the same caliber pitcher, no question, but Wang's not yet 28. Why are the Yanks playing hardball with Wang? Why not offer him a 4 year deal for $32M (or 5/$40M), buying him out of arbitration and a few years of free agency? [EDIT: The Yanks have Wang under control via arbitration thru the 2011 season. I did not realize this at the time I created this posting. My apologies.] Still below market for even a mediocre starter. I don't get this stance by the Yanks.

It just seems totally hypocritical of the Yanks to toss up the "injury concern" thing regarding Wang but were willing to ignore it (to a degree) with Johan (and his lousy 2nd half and reported decreased velocity).

I would be pretty excited if the Yanks could lock down Wang for 4-5 years at a reasonable rate, something less than journeyman/mediocre pitchers like Carlos Silva, Kyle Lohse, etc. all seem to be getting. That'd be a smart move, in my opinion.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Or not.

Clemens throws wife under bus; declared batshit crazy

In an amazing, yet not completely surprising, twist, Roger Clemens has proven himself to be completely batshit crazy by tossing HIS WIFE under the bus.

Once Clemens learned that Pettitte's recent affidavit claimed that Roger told Andy that he used HGH, Clemens summarily hurled Debbie Clemens under the bus.

Clemens responded by saying Pettitte misunderstood the previous exchange in 1999 or 2000 and that, in fact, Clemens had been talking about HGH use by his wife in the original conversation.

I'm flabbergasted that Clemens is this desperate. this delusional, this batshit crazy to toss his wife under the bus. Once this trial is over, assuming he's guilty as most people think, all he'll have left is his family and I can't imagine Debbie Clemens was thrilled with being 'outted' that way. I also can't imagine that Debbie told Roger to use her as a decoy. My wife would be calling Raul Felder instantly.

Clemens had BETTER be innocent. He HAS to be, otherwise, what excuse could he have for his actions?

---

Also, feel free to visit Shysterball as he's got the legal expertise to help mere mortals like me grasp some of the legalese.

• Let the Perjury Investigation Begin!

Some other HGH/Steriods stuff found here:

• Foiled by an 11 year old?
• Pettitte's "truthiness" provides roadmap for other...
• The time has come: Store blood tests
• Body talk: Clemens & McNamee style
• Baseball, steroids and boobjobs
• All the exhibits, none of the calories
• That's a wrap, folks
• Pettitte's affidavit
• Good boys go to heaven?
• Zingeroo!
• Fireworks!
• Rep. Clay "hearts" Clemens
• Roger's butt causes reasonable doubt
• Score one for Roger
• Rusty chokes on own words
• The fine line, redux
• Pettitte asks out; has the truth already been told...
• Good question
• Chain of custody and other questions
• Trouble brewing for Clemens
• The fine line between bold and stupid

The fine line, redux

Dan Wetzel from Yahoo Sports had the same slant as I had posted way back on February 4th when I penned the entry The fine line between bold and stupid. My belief, simply, was:

There's a fine line between being bold/aggressive and stupid. I think Clemens & Co. are crossing the line.

And

I think Rusty should just keep quiet and stop trying to win the battle for the court of public opinion. That will be determined on February 13th.

What if 1) Everyone universally agrees that Pettitte IS honest and 2) He tells the truth and that contradicts everything Clemens has said? Then what, Rusty? An indictment, I guess. Or, are you going to accuse Pettitte of lying under oath?

I still think Clemens has the "unknowingly" phrase packed away, but ready to use when testifying. "I THOUGHT McNamee was giving me only B-12 and Lidocaine; if he gave me anything else, he did it without my knowledge or permission." Yes, that's how I see Clemens playing this out in 10 days.

Wetzel takes my thoughts a step further, thankfully, and opened his article this way:

Roger Clemens is either completely innocent or completely stupid.

There really isn't another option, not after Clemens has so aggressively defended himself against performance-enhancing drug charges that he has, perhaps unwittingly, raised the stakes to felony levels.

A felony? Looks like someone overplayed their hand, eh Rusty/Roger?

As I have claimed many times, Clemens has done everything we've said we would want our sports heroes to do if wrongly accused. From Wetzel:

He's filed a defamation lawsuit. He's gone on "60 Minutes." He's held a news conference. He's taped a phone call. He's voluntarily testified under oath. He's welcomed his day in Washington. He's met privately with politicians. He's prepared statistical arguments. He's challenged the slightest of charges with evidence. He's had his lawyers make all sorts of crazy comments.

He's showed how you attempt to prove a negative, with a full-bore attack.

What's so interesting to me, as a fan, is the parallels to Barry Bonds, with one major difference: Barry has been beloved and almost sheltered in his home town. I know the SF fans file it under "he's our guy, for better or worse" and I can live with that 100%. Being a fan isn't easy these days. But with Clemens, he's burned every bridge in Boston. He was beloved in his hometown of Houston when he went home, bringing Pettitte, too, leading the 'Stros to a W.S. berth. But in doing so, he burned many bridges in NY. Then he turned his back on Houston to grab more $ from the Yanks. The Yanks fans, of which I am one, looked at Clemens as a hired gun, not "one of our guys", especially last year. He's got very little support amongst the Yanks fans I have chatted with.

Roger has garnered no sympathy or empathy. He's just a tragic figure these days. What a shame. He'll have to live out his days under the cloud of PED use, likely to have to pay to get into the HOF just like I do. Talk about a fall from grace. Makes Palmiero's and McGwire's fall look like a toddler stumbling rather than the dive Clemens has taken.

Let's see how Roger tries to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

Pettitte asks out; has the truth already been told?

Fearing implicating his bestest buddy former teammate, Andy Pettitte has asked to be excused from appearing in front of the House Oversight Committe on Wednesday.

Pettitte asked out of public testimony because he did not want to say something to hurt his friend and former teammate while in the glare of national television coverage

Interestingly, according to the report, Chairman Waxman agrees with Pettitte and is consulting his Republican counterpart. I think I know why Waxman's agreeable to this.

I can completely appreciate Pettitte's stance; I mean who wants to rat out a friend, particularly when doing so would likely result in a perjury charge and jail time for that friend. However close Pettitte and Clemens are or might have been, Andy surely feels a debt of gratitude for Roger helping elevate his game and fitness training. Not everything Clemens did or achieved is due to PEDs; you have to have the god-given talent in the first place. Clemens took Pettitte under his wing and showed him how to work his rear-end off and Andy's career blossomed as a result.

But, and it's a HUGE BUT, doesn't Pettitte's request look like a fear of telling the world that Roger is lying on TV? It does to me. Guessing that I won't be alone come drive-time radio tomorrow. What is also likely is that Pettitte has already implicated Roger via deposition and sitting and pointing the finger ON TV could simply be too difficult for Pettitte, who's known to be a sensitive and introverted guy. It's my guess that Andy has validated McNamee's story in the deposition and Waxman is giving him a break so he doesn't have to do it for the whole world to see.

Waxman and Co. already got what they need from Pettitte; an admission of guilt, a confirmation of McNamee's story and enough rope to hang Clemens. Waxman will let Pettitte go with the Committee's thanks.


Now, steering this back towards the on-the-field stuff: I'm really wondering how Pettitte will perform this year. If he is the one to effectively hang Roger, does he become a cheered-for villian around the league? Will he be applauded for his honesty? Or will he be booed as one of The Mitchell Gang? Most Yanks get booed on the road regardless, but Pettitte would seem to be too plain vanilla to be booed in most visiting parks. Not so much anymore. Tell ya one thing: I know Cashman is expecting Pettitte to hand deliver 16 wins and a 3.75 ERA.

What do we, the fans, want the outted users to do? Apologetic, repentant, hat-in-hand? Defiant, loud, aggressive? Slink away into the darkness? Make a statement and that's it? I don't know, either.

Good question

OK, so I can't keep my eyes (and hands) off this trainwreck. Oh well.

So much for letting the Clemens Affair go persona non grata for 2 days. Barely a few hours and I finally got to Buster Olney's blog and he posted this and it really made me wonder (emphasis mine):

A lawyer for Brian McNamee says Roger Clemens may face a perjury probe, and Rusty Hardin wonders how he would know this, Ron Blum writes.

But Hardin told the Daily News late Sunday night that he fears Clemens will face a probe.

Within the same piece, one member of the committee drew a comparison between what is happening now and the era of McCarthyism. And there is this from the Michael O'Keeffe and Teri Thompson story:

Hardin pointed out a peculiarity of the Mitchell report that many legal experts have
noticed: That a document created by a private citizen commissioned for a private corporation was turning the wheels of the justice system.

"Right now nobody is suggesting that there is any prosecutable crime that has occurred so far," Hardin said. "The way to create one is to take the position that a person is committing perjury if he publicly defends himself contrary to the Mitchell report. That's a helluva note -- that you're going to use a privately commissioned report, to say that it has such talismanic qualities, to say that anybody who disagrees with it is committing perjury."

Made me wonder if this is the "out" that will save Clemens from perjury, if he's otherwise not cleared from the accusations. I'll keep sticking to my guess (2/4/08) that Clemens escapes perjury (if not otherwise cleared) this way:

• I still think Clemens has the "unknowingly" phrase packed away, but ready to use when testifying. "I THOUGHT McNamee was giving me only B-12 and Lidocaine; if he gave me anything else, he did it without my knowledge or permission." Yes, that's how I see Clemens playing this out [on February 13, 2008].

If any lawyerly types are out there who care to weigh in, please do. More questions...

• Is there any precedent here (regarding a private document serving as the basis for a perjury charge)?
• Can Clemens still face perjury charges in a he-said/he-said affair?
• Does it come down to whatever our elected officials think happened?
• Does Clemens' touring of Capital Hill effectively corrupt the "voters"?
• How outrageous is that, that Clemens is actively campaigning those who might determine his fate?
• Does the Mitchell Report have any bearing?
• Will Debbie Clemens get called to testify and might she face perjury charges, too?
• If Clemens can prove that he wasn't at this Canseco party that McNamee claims, does that torpedo McNamee's other claims?
• Can Carl Pavano make it on the field for more than 15 TOTAL appearances in 2008? Does anyone care?

'Splain us, please!

Great moments in caption writing

Derek Jeter is thrilled to be back with Yank vets like Johnny Damon (l.) and Bobby Abreu.

That's the actual caption in this article's picture. Nice choice of picture to use. Looks like Jeter would rather be ANYWHERE else.

It's not the crash that kills; it's the change of direction

Frankly, in a headline tailor-made for me here, I saw this "Money not an issue with Cleveland Indians pitcher C.C. Sabathia, length of contract is" and I had to pony-up. That's like saying it's not the ground that kills someone jumping off a building, it's the change in direction.

With everyone and their mother using Santana's contract ($137.5M/6 yrs, including deferred compensation) as a "comp", it's only logical that if C.C. hit the free agent market next year, he'd be in line for a similarly priced deal. Saying that the length of the contract is the main issue is only a cute way of saying, dig this, "it IS about the money, stupid". Man, I love how this works sometimes.

Now, Sabathia may truly love playing in Cleveland and may choose to forgo a free agent-sized deal to stay (ie: home-town discount) like Peavy did in San Diego. If he chooses that, great for him, but it surely won't be about the length of the contract.

Just don't tell me it's about the length of the contract and not the money. If that were the case, sign a 6+ year contract significantly below market value and stay.

I can't, I just can't. Sorry.

Sorry. Really. I tried. I tried again. I failed.

I tried to recap the whole weekend of Clemens/McNamee related mess, from Debbie Clemens getting injected, to the "he was at the party"/"no he wasn't", to the UPenn debunking of Clemens's agent's "stat book", to the agents' rebuttal, to Rusty Hardin daring well-known pitbull/IRS agent Jeff Novitsky to show up at the hearings, to Waxman's counter to Hardin's dare... and quite frankly, I'm nearing the O.D. stage.

I'm officially going Clemens-free for the next 2 days, until he and great buddy former teammate Pettitte (and Knoblauch) appear with McNamee in front of Congress on Wednesday.

Pitchers and catchers in THREE days. Baseball previews and discussion on the docket this week. FINALLY!!!

Non-sports related Friday send-off

Sometimes, I just need a laugh to get me thru to the weekend. Today is one of those days, after a crazy-busy week. For example:

Floating the knuckler

OK, this isn't the place you come for human interest stories; you can visit Oprah.com for that. However, thanks to the great baseball content aggregation site ballbug.com, I came across this story of a nearly-washed up pitcher named R.A. Dickey. He played for the Texas Rangers. Nothing special. Eminently forgettable. Arm problems, loss of velocity, promotions and demotions to Triple A. A story told a thousand times, if not more.

[Dickey's claim to fame? In April 2006, he gave up 6 home runs in a game, one less than Charlie Sweeney's record. Nice.]

Then in 2004, "Rangers pitching coach Orel Hershiser watched him in the bullpen and suggested he could prolong his career if he would commit to the knuckleball."

Last year he and his knuckleball had a breakthrough season in Nashville. He was virtually unbeatable the second half of the season, finished 13-6 and was named Pacific Coast League Pitcher of the Year. About 80 percent of his pitches were knuckleballs.

It's a pretty interesting story more for the mental challenges he faced when deciding to abandon his "conventional" pitcher approach than for anything else. It made me think of someone who lost a leg or arm and having to relearn how to do everything that once was "normal" to them.

Anyways, he was claimed by the Mariners and is making a go of it this year as a knuckler. Here's wishing him luck.


BONUS STUFF:

• The Aerodynamics of the Knuckleball
• Aerodynamics of the Knuckleball (Googlebooks)
• The knuckleball: a lost weapon among pitchers
• How a Knuckleball Knuckles (pdf)

Great moments in sneaky fandom

From Deadspin: How To Sneak Into The Giants Victory Parade Without Really Trying

So incredible. Too much to copy/paste here. Trust me, no matter your fandom or allegiances, worth a read.