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Roger Clemens Strikes Out

by Francis Beckwith

This is very sad.

Posted by Francis Beckwith on February 13, 2008 6:46 PM | Del.icio.us |

Comments (5)

Surreal. Not not sure why this issue is before Congress and never thought I would be impressed by Henry Waxman, but any doubt that Clemens is a fraud has been put to rest. So too any desire that he enter the Hall wearing a Red Sox cap. He is unworthy of both honors.

Posted by Kevin | February 13, 2008 7:17 PM

Over at The Corner, Jonah Goldberg reports that the following take on all this is "making the rounds on the web":

Clemens: You want answers?

Congressman: I think I'm entitled to them.

Clemens: You want answers?

Congressman: I want the truth!

Clemens: You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has baseballs. And those balls have to be hit by men with bats. Who's gonna do it? You? You,Congressman? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for steroids and you curse HGH. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that HGH, while illegal, probably sells tickets. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, sells tickets...You don't want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that mound. You need me on that mound. We use words like fastall, slider, splitfinger...we use these words as the backbone to a life spent playing a sport. You use 'em as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and falls asleep to the Sportscenter clips I provide,! then questions the manner in which I provide it! I'd rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a bat and dig in. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you're entitled to!

Congressman: Did you order the HGH?

Clemens: (quietly) I did the job you sent me to do.

Congressman: Did you order the HGH?

Clemens: You're goddamn right I did!!

FWIW

Posted by Steve Burton | February 14, 2008 1:30 PM

That is a genuinely funny take on the controversy...

Nevertheless, I've got to buck much of the conservative consensus that this is merely a waste of time, and that the league should be left to police itself, with the sports-watching public delivering the verdict on the efficacy of whatever measures the league imposes. Eh. Their stadiums are publicly-subsidized. They enjoy an anti-trust exemption. Their winking blind eyes regarding the use of performance enhancing substances degrade the integrity of the game - and games are excellent examples of self-referential practices good in themselves - and render the spectacle of competition something less than, you know, actual competition. Not to mention, the substances in question must be listed on some FDA schedule, which delimits the permissible uses.

I can think of thousands of other things I'd sooner witness those solons (chuckle, chortle) pursuing, but I'm under no illusions that they will actually pursue them, and, on the off-chance that they will, that they will enact viable solutions. If they cannot be entrusted to perform useful tasks, such as terminating the Mesopotamian quagmire or reforming the entitlement architecture, they can at least refrain from screwing them up further - which is to say, they can do nothing. And while busily doing that nothing, they could at least prevent the second religion of my youth from being degraded into the sporting equivalent of "Rehabilitation" in Idiocracy, replete with engineered man-beasts performing extra-human feats. In other words, I suspect that the public are too apathetic, and too degraded, to care whether their entertainments might be bogus; the public already accept routine lip-syncing in their 'musical' diversions, along with faux-reality television programming, and an increasingly simulacral reality. I'd sooner repose a little faith in authority to yank at the chain of MLB than witness every last good thing become a depressing parody of itself.

In other words, the fictional Clemens diatribe does encapsulate the truth, and that's the problem with us.

Posted by Maximos | February 14, 2008 1:46 PM

Clements is being pilloried by a witch hunting congressional committee not bound by any rules of evidence.

He denied using the drugs. His friend says he admitted it. Who can remember such minutia 10 years after the fact? Or even one year. This whole thing is absurd. If Clements is guilty all he has to do is abstain from saying anything by invoking the 5th. Instead he tries to be cooperative and forthcoming and answers the question flatly. He did not use HGH or Steroids.

This whole episode stinks.

Posted by Jesse | February 14, 2008 4:05 PM

"Instead he tries to be cooperative and forthcoming and answers the question flatly."

Sure. He'd have us believe that Pettite and his Nanny are lying and that one day he unexpectedly came home to find his trainer applying a needle to his wife's buttocks and his reaction was;" Gee Debbie why you taking HGH?"

His chance at the Hall is over.

Posted by Kevin | February 14, 2008 4:47 PM

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