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Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Clemens and McNamee Before Congress: Recap

I gave a little recap on the previous steroids timeline in a previous post. So I won't get too deep into the past here because the meeting today didn't really bring anything new to light.

One of the intersting choices made was that the only people present were Roger Clemens and Brian Mcnamee and Charles Scheeler, one of the authors of the Mitchell Report. First off where the hell were Andy Pettitte and Chuck Knoblauch. Second and possibly even more questionable, if the Mitchell Report needed a representative, who do you think we shoudl go with for that. Gee I just can't decide, hmmm I don't know how 'bout SEN. MITCHELL

The biggest thing I noticed was that throughout the course of the hearing the body language shifted. While Clemens seemed to grow stronger and more confident as the questioning continued. While Mcnamee seemed to wilt as the questioning went on. While Clemens certainly seemed to have some issues. Most notably the fact that the Chair of the Committee, Henry Waxman, seemed set against him. The Major set backs seemed to be on McNamee's side.The lowest point for McNamee is debatable but it was likely at the point Rep. Christopher Shays accused McNamee of being a "drug dealer," which finally got McNamee fired up.

"I only did what players asked," McNamee said, "and it was wrong."
When McNamee tried to claim that because of that he wasn't a drug dealer, Shays pounced.
"You were a DRUG DEALER," he bellowed. "You were dealing drugs."
"That's your opinion," McNamee retorted.
"No," Shays snapped. "That's not opinion. You were dealing drugs. You're telling me that as a former police officer, you weren't dealing drugs?"
"Dealing in them?" McNamee answered. "Yes."
"Were they LEGAL drugs?" Shays went on.
"No," McNamee said, almost in a whisper.
Shays shook his head, like a teacher who had just caught a kid in the back of the class trying to fake an assignment.
"Then you were a drug dealer," he said.


If that wasn't the low point for McNamee then it possible came when Dan Burton began his alloted 5 minutes

''That's a lie, right?'' he said after reading his comments back to him.
''This is really disgusting,'' Burton said. ''You're hear as a sworn witness yet we have lie after lie after lie. I don't know what to believe. I know one thing I don't believe. That's you!''


Other than a few exceptions, the attitudes ran down party lines. With the Republicans seeming to support Clemens other than notable exception Rep. Mark Souder. Souder seemed upset with Clemens as well as MLB owners and Bud Selig. Judging by Souders remarks I am guessing he is looking to make a whole new subcommittee solely for over seeing baseball. Good god let it go.

The Democrats seemed to fall in behind McNamee, with their exception being Rep. William Lacy Clay. Not only did Clay pretty much say "why don't you use my 5 minutes to give a little speach about how this is all about the children" When Clemens only used four and half minutes. Clay used the remaining 30-seconds to ask "A colleague of mine, Mr. Capuano of Massachusetts, wants to know what uniform you're going to wear to the Hall of Fame." Really!? I can't imagine why people are upset that congress is wasting time on this.

While I watched this all morning I followed along as ESPN.com senior writer Jayson Stark described all the action My favorite gem form all this was

Just a thought as the questioning of the Rocket gets rolling:
Since he's under oath, any chance one of these congressmen could ask Roger what the heck actually happened when he threw that bat at Mike Piazza?
He didn't really think that was the ball, did he?
Sorry to digress. Just thinking.


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