MLB's Dog-and-Pony Show Solves Nothing

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The Mitchell Report, baseball’s commissioned investigation into the sport’s steroid problem, read like a steamy novel written just for sports fanatics. I pored through it with the intensity of a love starved woman reading a Danielle Steel book. One of the more depressing aspects of the report’s release was that it was anticipated with a "Who Got Caught" type of buzz rather than "Who Used." Even so, the inclusion of Roger Clemens' (an All-Star pitcher and certain Hall of Famer) surprised many. His continued success had always been attributed to his intensely superior training regimen. Players descended on his house for workouts like individuals journeying to study with the Dalai Lama.

Clemens’ initially reacted with ferocious defiance, but with good reason. The only evidence against him was verbal testimony given by his former trainer Brian McNamee, essentially heresy. McNamee said he injected Roger with steroids repeatedly during the 1998, 2000 and 2001 seasons. Also paramount to the trainers story was his assertion that Clemens was introduced to the idea of using steroids by Jose Canseco (baseball’s crowned “Mr. Steroids”) while attending a party at Canseco’s house.

Now, as their hearing before House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform comes to a close, there still looks to be a measure of ambiguity to this soap opera.

I watched Wednesday’s hearings. It was in effect an angry mob of geriatrics closing in on a victim- except, they were not sure yet who that victim would be. In an effort to discover the truth, both individuals have been scrutinized under the brightest of lights. Frankly, McNamee comes off as anything but an upstanding individual. He used Clemens image to advertise his services as a trainer, without consulting the pitcher. He claimed to be a doctor after receiving a P.H.D. from a college that didn’t even have a campus. He took his courses through the mail making it, essentially, a diploma mill.

Roger’s legal team’s main offensive against McNamee involved disproving his story about Canseco’s party. They produced game footage in which the announcers discuss Clemens absence from that certain weekend’s festivities. Clemens also brought forward a receipt from the golf round that he claims to have played the morning that the steroids barbecue was taking place. This almost hindered his case as it seemed both ludicrous and downright humorous that he would keep accounting records as meticulously as he conducts his workouts.

But as disreputable as McNamee appeared, Clemens was even harder to believe. To combat Clemens claims of absence from the party, McNamee cited that the Clemens’ nanny was at the party and would agree with McNamee’s claims. He recommended that Congress find her and they requested her information from Clemens’ and his lawyers. Congress reiterated Wednesday that they repeatedly asked Clemens for her information throughout this past weekend but were only provided with the necessary contact info at the end of the weekend. When they talked to her, they were very startled to find out that she had been a visitor at Clemens’ house the previous day. She told them that he had implored her to “tell the truth.” While she said he might not have been at the party, he was at Conseco’s house at some point during that time period.

While this appears to be a smoking gun, the party really means nothing to the overall actions being scrutinized. For the time being, it is just speculation. But the strongest catalyst of the rampant speculation is the testimony of Andy Pettitte, Clemens’ former teammate and best friend. McNamee also claimed he had given Pettitte steroids, as well as former Yankee Chuck Knoblach. And both corroborated his story. It seems strange that McNamee would tell the truth about two players, but lie about another.

Pettitte also gave congress a deposition and he went as far as implicating Roger. He said that Clemens had explicitly told him about his steroids use. While it might seem shameful to rat on a friend, Pettitte is a religious man who answers to a higher authority and he has no reason to tell anything but the truth. Roger maintains that Pettitte misunderstood him, but this is not a matter of semantics.

This biggest piece of hard evidence is the syringes that McNamee finally handed over to congress last week. He claims he used them to inject Clemens with steroids. That’s right. He handed over syringes that he had, for some inexplicable reason, held onto for over five years. He kept dirty needles in his home for half a decade. One wonders how many times he moved during this time and had to go about packing up and unpacking his traveling virus collection. In any case, these could prove to be the smoking gun, but DNA and other tests are still pending.
If the tests don’t return conclusive proof of Clemens culpability then, ultimately it seems like this is going to amount to a glorified shouting match. It’s a vicious game of tug-of-war but neither side has the hard evidence to pull the other into the center. Perjury charges have been threatened against the loser, but since all the evidence is verbal testimony, each side has been proven to have massive holes in their stories and neither would hold up in court.

Both appear tarnished but are legally spotless, meanwhile, Major League Baseball is the real one being dragged through the mud. This continued drama only serves to keep twisting the knife in the wound that the Mitchell Report opened. It’s the reason that naming names was in reality, a bad decision. Rather than drag up past grievances both sides should have just admitted that grave mistakes were made and moved forward amicably to clean up the game.