Clemens Strikes Out
After a less than memorable World Series between the Philadelphia Phillies and Tampa Bay Rays, it's official: this year's most compelling baseball drama took place on Capitol Hill, before the season even began. In February, a House committee investigating performance enhancing drug use in baseball called Roger Clemens, who was named as a steroid user in the league's 2007 Mitchell Report, to Washington for a nationally televised hearing. Joining Clemens was his former personal trainer Brian McNamee, who had claimed he had injected the Rocket with steroids. Both men, sitting at the same table yet refusing to look at one another, gave conflicting testimony under oath. But it was Clemens' credibility, and reputation, which took a devastating hit. The committee presented a sworn affidavit from Andy Pettitte, the Rocket's former teammate and best bud. Pettitte, who had already come clean about his own use of performance enhancers, said Clemens had previously told him he used human growth hormone. Clemens repeatedly said that Pettitte "misremembers" their discussions. It was just one particularly bumbling response in an awful performance that could end up costing the disgraced pitcher a place in the Hall of Fame.