I woke up early this morning to watch what I felt was a reasonable portion of the congressional hearing regarding the use of steroids in baseball, and chiefly Roger Clemens’ assessment that his former trainer’s statements about supposed steroid/human growth hormone use were lies. There was no way I felt like waking up at 6:30am this morning — on my day off — to watch the entire ESPN broadcast, but I watched from 9:00am until its conclusion, and read Jayson Stark’s blog updates from the few hours I missed.

I should preface my remarks on the hearing by stating I haven’t believed Roger Clemens is innocent since the moment I heard his name tied to former Senator George Mitchell’s investigation. Perhaps my disdain is to some degree tied in with his being a beloved Yankee pitcher, but to be honest I pretty much treat all public figures similarly when they are faced with legal issues. None of them ever want to admit to any wrongdoing, and most of them are so adamant about it I cannot help but believe they are all guilty. So, with those two sticking points perpetually on my mind as I read more and more about the legal chess match leading up to today’s hearing, I found myself solidly backing Clemens’ former trainer Brian McNamee’s testimony delivered to Mitchell and federal prosecutors. At the very heart of this saga there is a simple fact that people seem to overlook: McNamee had no reason to lie in his original statement to the Mitchell report. He was told that so long as he told the truth, there existed the possibility that he could avoid imprisonment. He had no reason to lie. And so he named Roger Clemens.

As I watched the hearing today, I tried my best to remain objective. I looked for body language clues, listened to tones of voice, and tried to calculate which representatives supported the different accounts. I listened to ESPN’s talking heads during breaks and immediately following the proceedings. And I still believe that my initial assessment is correct. Roger Clemens is a liar, and he blatantly perjured himself with each passing moment of today’s hearing.

The lack of truth present in his testimony certainly wasn’t evident in his body language or tone of voice. He sat upright, spoke in a commanding tone, and vehemently denied the allegations against him. He looked and spoke strong. He peppered his answers with assertions that he never cheated, and that he was being dragged through the mud unwillingly by a horrible liar. Unfortunately for Clemens, he had nobody corroborating his story, and the supposed “liar” he was testifying against had pretty much everybody in his corner. Even his best friend and workout partner Andy Pettitte, admitted during his deposition that the statements made by McNamee in the Mitchell Report were true. So too did Pettitte’s wife, and former Yankee Chuck Knoblauch. Sadly, only two or three of the representatives present during the hearing mentioned the fact that if the other two witnesses agreed with McNamee’s statements, why on earth should they believe Clemens when he says they are lies?

McNamee, on the other hand, did not look like someone who was at all confident in his story. He sat with a frown on his face, his shoulders slunk, and mumbled short answers when questioned. When Clemens took his verbal jabs from various congressmen, he remained poised; McNamee grew smaller and smaller with each successive slight against his character. His credibility could not be any lower as a witness. He talks like an old New York street rat with a thick Long Island accent. He admitted to lying several times before, and actually denied dealing drugs at one point during the hearing. One of the congressmen had to slowly walk him through the question in order to finally get him to admit that yes, he was a drug dealer.

Speaking of those congressmen and women, it was shocking to see party lines drawn when it came to taking sides with either Clemens or McNamee. Democrats favored McNamee, Republicans chose Clemens. It’s also interesting to note that Clemens is an outspoken Republican who claims former president George H.W. Bush called him while he was out deer hunting and told him to “stay strong”. For the remainder of the afternoon, Republicans giddily commented about how Clemens was “going to heaven”, and lobbed questions about what messages he would send to children across the country or what team’s hat he would wear on his Hall of Fame plaque.

And yet, for some reason McNamee comes across as more truthful than Clemens. He admitted to being a bad person and to withholding information in order to protect Clemens, a man he deeply admired. His testimony is bolstered by that of Knoblauch, Pettitte, and Mrs. Pettitte. All Clemens did was raise further questions about why he continued to employ McNamee even after discovering he was not qualified to practice medicine (including the supposed B-12 vitamine and Lidocaine shots he received, as well as spinal adjustments and a host of other services McNamee performed for Clemens). He managed to not even fire McNamee after the man injected Clemens’ wife with human growth hormone, supposedly behind his back! What’s more, McNamee and his dirty lawyers never attempted to “do the committee a favor” by inviting a potential witness (the former nanny) to his house for a visit instead of just handing her contact information over to the committee so that she could be questioned immediately without having her testimony potentially influenced.

As I write this, a new article at ESPN has emerged stating that a facial expert believes Clemens appeared more nervous than McNamee. His “lips were pressed together tight, the corners turned slightly upward, his mouth pulled wide. ‘There’s only one interpretation,’ said Dan Hill, an expert in analyzing facial expressions, ‘and that’s fear’.” You can read the article here, not that I take any stock in something like facial analysis. The side-column on that page links to all the related news stories and Committee Depositions/Interviews with Pettitte, McNamee, Clemens, Knoblauch and Clemens’ nanny.

It’s a terrible, disgusting situation that has arisen, but one that I am unusually fascinated by as a die-hard baseball fan. With each day new information comes to light that seems to contradict or corroborate one of the two men involved in this legal battle. It will be intriguing to see how the committee decides to proceed from here. There will be no more hearings dealing with baseball’s steroids-ridden past, if you believe the one congressman who stated exactly that following today’s showdown. I cannot see this coming to any conclusion soon, but you can be certain that I’ll remain interested for the duration.

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