Monday (Clemens) edition: Wha’ Happened?
Posted on February 11th, 2008 – 8:00 AMBy Michael Rand
As much as we’ve tried to ignore the steroid jibber jabber — not that we don’t think it’s a worthwhile discussion, we just can’t have it all the time — the wild weekend ride for Roger Clemens just cannot be ignored. To recap: On Friday, reports stared coming out that Brian McNamee testified that he gave Clemens’ wife, Debbie, an injection of HGH before her SI swimsuit photo. Over the course of Saturday and Sunday — the exact times get a little fuzzy — we heard that 1) Kirk Radomski believes McNamee, not Clemens; 2) Professors from Penn have refuted the statistical evidence prepared by Clemens’ people that attributed his late-career surge to natural means. In fact, they concluded that, while there is no indication of guilt, “statistics show that something unusual happened,” and 3) One of Clemens’ attorneys, Rusty Hardin, has been rebuked for making a remark that could be deemed as “an attempt to intimidate a federal law enforcement official.”
Phew. Did we miss anything? Sweet mercy, what a bad weekend for Roger Clemens. This thing had a feeling of tilting his way early as the credibility of McNamee was pecked away at by some very crafty handlers. Now, though, those preemptive strikes are starting to look a little short-sighted — the statistical report, for instance, was an obvious attempt to win the battle for public opinion, and while it might have worked early on it has now gone dramatically in the other direction. We’ve long been in the camp that thought Clemens’ turnaround was rather dramatic — enough that when it was combined with the bat he threw at Mike Piazza and the delicious conspiracy theory that his late forays into the 2006 and 2007 seasons were actually because of secret 50-game steroid suspensions, his achievements had to at least be looked at through a more critical lens. Then, of course, there was the Mitchell Report and the dominoes that have been falling since then. We take no pleasure in the best power hitter and best pitcher of this era perhaps having achieved their greatness with an assist from science. But we also can’t pretend that if they did, indeed, cheat, they’re getting everything they deserve.
What else?
*So many great Chris Berman videos. So many. The latest one, with him talking about the aspirin in Canada with a little bit of codeine in them — 222s or deux-deux-deuxs — is perhaps our favorite. We saw it first on Awful Announcing.
*The return of KG. It seemed like forever ago. We actually recorded a Timberwolves game (yes, with a VCR) and watched it Saturday morning. It still strikes us as weird that he came out for a minute and then just went back into the locker room. It strikes us as even weirder that there were about 18 Celtics around the basket on the winning play, and not enough Timberwolves. The Sunday game? We won’t talk about that, but we can talk about Gophers vs. Iowa if you wish.
*Hoc-key Day in Minnesota. Marthaler has your roundup right here.
*Adrian Peterson was apparently successful in the Pro Bowl. Bully for him. We watched about two minutes of the game, and it was two minutes too many. The NFL went into its deep sleep last weekend. Let’s not pretend.
*Fasola-link! Video of a high school wrestler who dominates despite not having hands, legs or forearms. Amazing, really.
UP NEXT: Dave MN and a brand new honoree share the COW award and their thoughts.


