Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Roger Clemens heads to court

Roger Clemens-circa 2000 or so

We will soon know probably a little more than we might like to about retired baseball superstar pitcher Roger Clemens.

That's because Clemens' perjury trial starts today in Washington D.C.

For the few of you unfamiliar, let's catch up with things. Clemens was accused a couple years ago of using steroids to enhance his performance. His former "Personal Trainer" Brian McNamee was the man making the accusation. The investigation was a part of a federal investigation into steroid use by professional baseball players, something roughly akin to what Barry Bonds was dealing with.

During the series of investigations, and really before McNamee came out and made his allegations, Clemens spoke to Congress about an anti-steroid lifestyle. According to the government investigators and NcNamee, he lied about it under oath.

Read a brief primer from the New York Daily News RIGHT HERE

FBI Investigators have spent 3-years trying to dig up evidence against Clemens and quite honestly, nobody is really sure what they've found.

We know McNamee says Clemens began taking steroids some 10-years ago while pitching in Toronto. And according to the variety of stories done on him, there's a pretty big trail of evidence. Clemens himself hasn't helped his case by giving often confusing or conflicting statements about whether or not he did anything wrong.

Over the next couple of weeks, we should find out if he lied about it and we are a bit conflicted over this. While yes, we probably want to know if he was "Juicing" to make himself a superstar longer, it's been a long time since it happened. It's over with. And the government is spending an awful lot of money to prove a case that will just essentially say Clemens lied.

Really, for that, Clemens will get probation, a fine or at worst, spend a few months at Club Fed. And we wonder, aside for tarnishing memories, what really will it prove?

Here's the testimony that kind of got this whole thing going back in 2008:


No comments:

Post a Comment