Roger Clemens is in court again, trying yet again to discretely exit out the backdoor and maintain his innocence while facing mountains of empirical and circumstantial evidence that clearly link him to banned and illegal steroids and performance enhancing supplements. Once known to baseball fans as a role model, winning pitcher, and fearless competitor, today Clemens comes across as a coward — a person so terrified to ever being discovered having been a cheater that he has gone to unimaginable lengths to protect his less than glamorous past.
While countless baseball peers of Clemens have come clean and admitted to their guilt (even if they were essentially forced to do so), Clemens continues to hold a poker face and maintain that he never used any kind of performance enhancement supplement during his career. Of course, Clemens, like anyone charged for a crime, is “innocent until proven guilty,” but there is so much going against Clemens denials and so much evidence supporting he used that it’s almost comical watching how far a man will go to preserve his name and reputation — that at least partially was built upon cheating.
I would imagine many MLB players, especially those who played during the time Clemens played, are quite bothered by the position Clemens is taking. I would also suspect that those players who were caught during the steroid era in baseball are really troubled by the fact that there’s a good chance that Clemens will somehow squirm out of the charges against him, while they had to pay a terrible price through public humiliation and a tarnished reputation. But not Roger Clemens — rather than “manning up,” as he used to do in pressure game situations, he continues to take the cowards route of denial.
While there is an extremely remote chance that Clemens never cheated, there are many factual pieces to this case that certainly refute his innocence, including the following:
- Clemens played in the steroid era — legions of players from this time have already been busted, and many more have talked about how widespread usage was amongst players. We have learned in retrospect from players during the steroid era that the baseball culture during that time was filled with steroids and PED’s — and the ridiculous power numbers that have yet to be duplicated since the steroid era certainly support this claim.
- Clemens clearly became more fit as he aged, and his pitching numbers improved dramatically as well. Never before – nor since the steroid era – have we witnessed baseball players getting bigger, stronger, and better as they aged. Father Time didn’t tap Clemens on the shoulder and grant him “special” abilities.
- There are stacks of medical reports and even DNA evidence connecting Clemens to steroid paraphernalia and unprecedented medical rehabilitation success. In fact, every claim that Brian McNamee (Clemens former trainer) has made has been confirmed – even his claims about injecting Clemens wife with human growth hormone – but somehow he is lying about only one man – Roger Clemens?
- McNamee admitted under oath about Clemens’ usage, and Clemens former best friend Andy Pettitte has also confessed that Clemens used. Pettitte has nothing to gain by making this claim, and is (was?) actually a friend of Roger Clemens. His testimony may end up being the most damaging in the end if Clemens is found guilty of using.
- Outside of Clemens and Barry Bonds (another player who squirmed out the back door rather than admitting his usage), nearly every player from the steroid era in baseball who used has either: a) been caught, or b) admitted to using.
- Finally, even though there is enough evidence out there already that shows Clemens is almost certainly lying, ask yourself how your gut feels about his innocence? Is there any part of this case where you feel Clemens didn’t use? While I would never suggest a person rely exclusively on intuition and “gut feelings,” I would encourage onlookers to trust those feelings, especially as they add to the already existing evidence that is almost impossible to refute.
Is Roger Clemens a role model? Hardly. Is he a coward who looks foolish trying to shirt from the truth, when he could simply come clean and help millions of young athletes learn about the dangers of steroids and performance enhancing supplements? In my opinion, yes. Is he an extremely wealthy former athlete with a good defense team that will probably get him off from these charges against him? Sadly, probably so.
“The Rocket,” as artificial as that name now sounds, will probably remain intact and ride off into the sunset never admitting to cheating the game of baseball. Unlike one of his former teammates, Alex Rodriguez, Clemens will not admit to any wrongdoing; and unlike Rodriguez and other players who have admitted using (including Andy Pettitte), he will never have the opportunity to be forgiven for his mistakes and poor decisions. The truth is we all make bad choices in life, and none of us are perfect — but we have witnessed that by coming clean (like Rodriguez and Pettitte did), people do forgive and forget. What people don’t like, however, is when a person is so obviously guilty yet still stands proudly rather than admitting to his crimes. That’s exactly the position Clemens has taken, and it’s not only cowardly, but also a terrific missed opportunity for a fresh start and means to help better educate kids about playing right, playing safe, and playing with integrity.
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