Roger Clemens: Still a lying jerk

So let me get this straight. Now that Roger Clemens has been acquitted of all the federal charges against him involving lying to Congress, I am supposed to believe that Brian McNamee supplied Andy Pettitte and Chuck Knoblauch and even Debbie Clemens with the juice, but Clemens never let McNamee, the trainer whose salary he was paying, touch him with steroids or HGH? Really? C’mon now. It’s all Roger’s hard work that enabled him to throw a fastball into his mid-40s? Spare me.

I am unsurprised by the verdict, and expected as much ever since Andy Pettitte backtracked on his testimony — thanks for nothing, buddy. Not to mention that when you have not one but two people thrown off the jury for falling asleep,  the prosecution isn’t exactly putting on a scintillating case. It also didn’t help that the jurors were picked because they knew nothing about baseball. 


I read and watch a lot of true crime stuff, and whenever I see a trial, I am usually aware of what the great trial lawyer Gerry Spence advises attorneys: tell a story. That means to say something understandable for the jurors to ponder. That doesn’t mean spending almost two months on minutia. I was on a murder trial that took less than a week. The prosecution in the Jerry Sandusky trial managed to tell eight victims’ stories in four days. Yet this Roger Clemens trial dragged on for 10 weeks, much of it due to the prosecution’s inability to tell a coherent story.

But the verdict isn’t really a true vindication of Clemens. The thing is, my issue with Clemens at this point is more about the lying and the sanctimony than the steroids and the HGH. I think that he and Barry Bonds were both Hall of Famers before they ever touched a needle. That being said, don’t give me this garbage about how it was just that hard work that enabled Clemens to pitch through 2007. Of course he worked hard — PEDs generally don’t work unless the player works out as well. But that doesn’t mean he’s innocent.


And I hope this verdict doesn’t mean he gets invited back into the Yankee fold. It already makes me vomit that Joe Torre got such cheers at last year’s Old Timers’ Day. Seeing Roger Clemens get such accolades will make me just as sick.


What do you think? Tell us about it.