WASHINGTON -- On a day worthy of Shakespeare and Maury Povich, we watched the legacy of Roger Clemens get seared to a burned, dead hulk. And his best friend Andy Pettitte lit the match.
It wasn't just the sworn testimony of Pettitte that clobbered Clemens. It was also steroid cheat Chuck Knoblauch and incredibly a former nanny. That's right. The nanny did it. This is how low the steroid era has dragged baseball and now Congress. Investigators are interviewing the ex-nanny between her changing diapers. Wonder if she has a Hall of Fame vote.
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| Who'll rat out Roger Clemens next? The gardener? (AP) |
This was, without question, one of the saddest days in the history of baseball as one of the great pitchers in a generation tap-danced, used words like "misremembered" and fumbled his way through tough questions with implausible explanations and Texas-sized bull malarkey. You could see his legend shrinking with each passing hour.
The zaniness and outrageousness of the scene here cannot be underestimated. There were hundreds of reporters and spectators present. The hallways outside the committee room were buzzing. Lines formed up and down the immediate area. Inside, reporters and spectators filled every seat.
To describe the Clemens hearings held by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform as a circus would be an insult to circuses. This was a circus on steroids. Rep. Christopher Shays called it a "Roman Circus." Not sure what that is but it sounds about right.
How weird was this day? Most investigations have a smoking gun. This one had a smoking nanny.
The truth, to many people, will remain in the eye of the needle beholder. No one looked good. McNamee is part rat and part dirt bag who fancies himself as Serpico but is more of an athlete enabler. Clemens is an excuse-making, selfish jerk who won't admit he made a mistake. Congress looks partisan and blowhard-like.
All of that is true.
Still, we got answers, and they lie with three people: Pettitte, Knoblauch and the nanny.
What the hearings did accomplish was that it established, basically, Clemens on one side and three credible witnesses on the other.
Knoblauch backed McNamee's version of events. One of the more thorny issues -- McNamee's contention that at a Jose Canseco party he and Clemens talked performance-enhancing drugs, something vehemently denied by Clemens -- was settled when an interview with Clemens' then nanny revealed the nanny saying Clemens was indeed at the party. Clemens, finally, reluctantly admitted it was possible he was at the party. He had to. He was busted.
Most disconcerting was the committee revealing that Clemens recently contacted the nanny. The lawyers for McNamee told a crowd of reporters they felt Clemens was basically witness tampering.
