Roger Clemens; Queen of Denial

[Valadius]

Can you believe that Mike Wallace is 89 freaking years old?

[Guest AG/DC]

Did he take credit for procuring the B-12 or whatever.

Because the video says that "I did not provide Brian McNamee with any drugs to inject into my body."

[metirish]

Clemens talked a lot about taking Vioxx and not sure what the future holds for his health since that drug has been banned by the FDA and found to be dangerous, it was nearly a teary moment.

[Farmer Ted]

Clemens has officially filed a defamation suit against McNamee. This basically gives Clemens another excuse not to answer questions before Congress ("I can't answer that question due to pending litigation") rather than pleading the 5th before Congress.

[Guest AG/DC]

Whoah, never looked at it that way. Nice.

[Guest AG/DC]

Seriously, his defense is aggressive enough that we have to be open to the idea that he may be able to clear himself, right?

Am I the world's biggest sucker for even opening that door?

[Willets Point]

Do you think Clemens did it with Zest?

[metirish]

His defense might be aggressive but for me at least the more he opens his mouth the bigger the hole he's digging, I think Clemens is getting bad advise from his lawyer, at the very least the 60 minutes interview is a good starting point for whoever to ask a bunch of follow up questions that were not asked last night.

[Guest themetfairy]

Ack! My Eyes!

[Willets Point]

themetfairy wrote: Ack! My Eyes!

Your eyes? It's your ears that should be hurting after listening to Clemens lipsync about Zest.

[Guest themetfairy]

My whole system went into shutdown.

I need a shower. But not with Zest!

[Farmer Ted]

From ESPN.com. The hole Clemens is digging gets bigger and bigger.
The last question is the best.


He said, he said: In the Mitchell report, trainer Brian McNamee claims he injected Roger Clemens with steroids more than a dozen times over the course of three different seasons, usually "in the buttocks."

Meanwhile, Clemens told "60 Minutes" that McNamee never injected him with steroids, but rather with vitamin B-12 and lidocaine, the latter an anesthetic that Clemens claimed was "for my joints."

Does Clemens' explanation make medical sense? Page 2 talked to a pair of experts:

1. What is lidocaine, and how does it work?

Dr. Ken Dretchen, pharmacology department chair, Georgetown University: It's a member of a class of compounds that work as local anesthetics, which means it's injected close to where there's a nerve area to decrease sensation and pain by deadening the nerve fibers.

Dr. John F. Dombrowski, director of pain medicine at the Washington Pain Center and former president of the D.C. Society of Anesthesiologists: We've all had experiences with it. We've gone to the dentist and had a tooth numbed up, or a dermatologist to get a wart or mole removed. They inject it under the skin to make it numb.

2. So would it work for joint pain?

Dr. Dretchen: Joint pain means you have pain fibers being excited, being set off with irritation or inflammation. If you inject lidocaine near those nerve fibers, you can decrease their transmission of pain signals. However, most people would treat [joint pain] with anti-inflammatory drugs.

Dr. Dombrowski: In our practice, I use local anesthetics for what is known as myofascial pain -- run of the mill, my neck or back hurts, muscular-skeletal pain that comes from stress or overuse. If you're working at a computer desk all the time and your neck and shoulders are in knots, and you can push on that spot and say, "Oh my God, it hurts," that's the perfect spot for an injection. And if we're using that, we're probably also using a little bit of steroids.

3. Wait -- steroids?

Dr. Dombrowski: Steroids are like alcohol. There are different kinds. For pain, I'll use a corticosteroid, like a cortisone shot. Those are done to joints and muscles to decrease inflammation. They will never make you big, unlike anabolic steroids such as testosterone. I would never use an anabolic steroid for pain management.

4. Right. So would it make sense for a pitcher to inject lidocaine?

Dr. Dombrowski: If it's your pitching arm, I could see injecting the shoulder to loosen up, throw some better heat. That's not unreasonable.

5. How long do the pain-relieving effects of lidocaine last?

Dr. Dombrowski: It's very short-lived. Four, six, maybe eight hours at most. Local anesthetics are a Band-Aid approach. They help you feel a little bit better. Lidocaine would not do anything about joint inflammation.

6. Can you get pain relief in your joints by injecting lidocaine into your, well, buttocks?

Dr. Dombrowski: No. Never. Unless Clemens was limited by hip pain or whatever in his buttocks, then no, that's not what you do. You use big deep muscles for injecting steroids. But you would never treat shoulder or elbow pain in that way. If what he was injected with was truly lidocaine, his butt cheek would be numb. And that's it.

Dr. Dretchen: Just a blind injection into the gluteus area, that would be a strange usage of the drug. When you go to the dentist, would you get an injection into your arm? Of course not.

Patrick Hruby is a columnist for Page 2.

[metirish]

Sounds reasonable that Ted, McNamee will be on ESPN today at 3PM.

[Guest AG/DC]

I love the statement "If I had known what that man, Brian MacNamee, had said about me, I would have been down there in a heartbeat."

First, there's the Clintonian gambit of feigning only passing familiarity with the figure that implicated him, as if he learned of the guy from the papers just like everbody else.

Second, there's the notion that he alone among major leaguers that Mitchell sought would have broken the stonewall.

Third, there's the notion that he would have spoken to Mitchell if he knew he was accused. What did he think Mitchell wanted to talk to him about?

Fourth, there's the plastic ethic that his own good name is the only thing that would compel him to talk. The guy is the former Senate majoirty leader, charged with seeking the truth and cleaning up the game Clemens claims to love and seek to serve. And, if Clemens is innocent, his only targets are those other guys who cheated, and kept Clemens and his team from winning more games. If he's squeaky clean --- Zest-fully clean --- even if he disagrees with the approach that the investigation represents, wouldn't he at least talk to the guy?

The phrase "after all I did for baseball" sticks in my craw too.

[metirish]

Clemens knew for a week before it was released that he was in the report, at least that's what I'm reading and hearing.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Well, as we (and the world) saw in 2000, Clemens isn't a very convincing liar. That whole "I thought the bat was the ball" business wasn't even worthy of a six-year-old.

It's funny that he claims that his two decades as a celebrity should give him credibility, especially since his track record has shown that he's a blatant liar.

I really hope that Pettitte flips on him while under oath.

And I REALLY hope that Clemens ends up in jail with Barry Bonds. Even without the steroids, they'd be great assets to their prison softball team.

[nymr83]

]Clemens has officially filed a defamation suit against McNamee. This basically gives Clemens another excuse not to answer questions before Congress ("I can't answer that question due to pending litigation") rather than pleading the 5th before Congress.

he can give whatever reason he wants for not talking to Congress if he's simply asked to speak, if he's actually subpoenad though i would assume that works that same way as a witness in court- "pending civil litigation" isn't an excuse.

As far as why he instituted this suit in the first place? i doubt he'll win but he looks more innocent when he claims his eagerness to resolve this in court and likely wants the opportunity to air McNamee's dirty laundry (from what i've read he has a long rap sheet)

[Guest KC]

His atty just said at the news conference going on that he'll appear without subpoena.

[Frayed Knot]

Very strange press conference.

- They played a tape of the entire 17 minute phone conversation between Clemens & McNamee from a few days ago (the one Newsday leaked the existance of). In it McNamee sounds upset (pathetic really) about having ratted on Roger but at no point in the transcipt does he either condemn or exonerate him. Nor does Clemens specifically ask BM why he "lied" to Mitchell. Both sides were obviously aware that the conversation was being recorded so the words seem to be chosen carefully.

- Clemens will go to the Congressional hearing next week.

- And basically he playing the angry man defense, angry that he's being put through this and determined to clear his name. He took some Q&A from the assembled press after the tape played and his lawyer yapped for a bit but cut it off after 10 minutes or so as he appeared to be on the verge of losing his temper.

Sounds like a guy determined to fight this thing right down the line.
Of course so did Pete Rose.

[stevejrogers]

DQ's (Drama Queen) purpose, and it worked for Rose, OJ, etc, is to get that "shadow of doubt" into someone's mind rather than going the Bonds route and not talking about anything, ever.

[nymr83]

From Espn.com's Lester MunsonL

]But the adjective is the most important here. The lawsuit is a "proactive" strike against McNamee. Clemens filed his case in Houston, his home court, where his lawyers have enjoyed extraordinary success. When McNamee gets around to filing his countersuit, he is stuck now. He must file it in Texas, the forum selected by Clemens and his lawyers.

thats a good point but other ones should be made. It is almost a gaurantee that McNamee will successfully remove the case to federal court in Texas (from the state court where Clemens filed.) From there, McNamee may succeed in moving the case to the federal court house in NYC. Texas is by no means the gauranteed forum right now.

[metsmarathon]

the most telling thing to me about that tape recording was that each and every time mcnamee said "what do you want me to do?" roger never once said "tell the truth about me" or "say i didn't do steroids"

and the only reason i can think of why is that the whole point of the conversation was to try to get mcnamee to waver on anything, by beating to death their prior friendship and relationship and staying the hell away from anything that might put him into a defensive stance where, when accused of lying, mcnamee would say "but roger, you did take steroids" or "i'd go to jail if i lied for you"

i'm not sure i call mcnamee pathetic, necessarily, but really broken up about what he's done to his good friend and older-brother-figure - that he's truly conflicted over what he's had to do. but in the parts of the recording that i heard, it never sounded like he was sorry for lying - rather that he was sorry for telling the truth.

i'll admit, i'm looking at it from my presupposed conclusion of clemens' guilt, but i'm just not seeing anything that roger says as the words of a reasonable, innocent person. rather, they strike me as the words of a reasonable, guilty person trying to clear his name.

[nymr83]

]i'm looking at it from my presupposed conclusion of clemens' guilt

shhhh!! now they won't let you serve on the eventual Clemens Jury!

[Benjamin Grimm]

Here's a question for the lawyers in the house:

What's the difference between "defamation of character" and libel or slander?

And, in a lawsuit like the one Clemens is pursuing, on whom is the burden of proof? Does Clemens have to prove that MacNamee lied, or does MacNamee have to prove that he told the truth?

[Guest KC]

mm: >>>it never sounded like he was sorry for lying - rather that he was sorry for telling the truth<<<

B-I-N-G-O

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

Ben Grimm -"And I REALLY hope that Clemens ends up in jail with Barry Bonds. Even without the steroids, they'd be great assets to their prison softball team."

I doubt that Clemens would be of much help to the prison softball team seeing as it's nearly impossible to brushback a hitter in slow pitch. Now if there's a bat throwing event, then Roger would be their man. Of course, without 'roid rage, he would likely suck at that too.

If Clemens gets the same treatment from HOF voters as Palmiero and McGwire, then I'll be satisfied.

[Fman99]

I've got some real nice feelings about this entire process. His uppance has come, finally.

[Guest AG/DC]

"I want to play this phone call that I recorded, trying to prove that I wasn't lying."

"Roger, considering the situation, why would he speak with candor?"

"Well, I got him to open up by lying to him."

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

I had some fun with Clemens' apparent butt obsession on the Mets Guy blog.

Honestly, I don't see how that press conference could have gone worse for Clemens. Dreadful.

[Benjamin Grimm]

metsguyinmichigan wrote: Honestly, I don't see how that press conference could have gone worse for Clemens. Dreadful.

Well, at least there wasn't any foam coming out of his mouth.