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Liar, Liar Goes Under The Big Top

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By MARTIN FENNELLY | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 14, 2008

TAMPA - Is it too late to make changes in the baseball schedule? Can they just play one game and hold 162 of these hilarious congressional hearings?

Pitchers and catchers report to training camps today.

Liars reported to the center ring Wednesday.

Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee's He-Said-He-Said Hell Raising Tour went before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Remember when you were a kid and your dad took you to your first House Oversight and Government Reform Committee? Hot dogs, they just taste better at the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, don't they?

When it was over, we suspected that if you stuffed Clemens and McNamee in a bat bag and rolled them down Capitol Hill, you'd always have a liar on top.

What a shabby under-oath dog-and-pony show this hearing turned out to be, filled with lunatic tales, pathetic denials, smoke blowing, grandstanding - and a nanny.

"I have never taken steroids or HGH," Clemens said.

The other side, if it was a solution in the board game "Clue," would go like this: Dr. McNamee, with a syringe, in Roger's rumpus room, or maybe just his rumpus.

Pettitte Comes Away Cleanest

Clemens and McNamee, sitting at the same table, had good moments, but mostly took turns looking like sleaze balls. Clemens said he didn't and McNamee said he did. There seemed to be no doubt that the assembled legislators truly believed only one man - and the man wasn't even there.

Yankees pitcher Andy Pettitte was excused from Wednesday's hearing, but said in a statement to the committee that he had used HGH and that Clemens had told him 10 years ago that he had used HGH.

Pettitte might lose his paper route and all his Cub Scout merit badges with his admissions, but he's more credible than McNamee and Clemens. Don't look now, but I think Clemens is the show horse in this race.

Clemens said his friend Pettitte "misremembered" him.

He said he had been referring to his wife using HGH when he talked to Pettitte.

Ah, Mr. and Mrs. America.

Inject my wife - please.

Then there is The Nanny - the mysterious Clemens' family employee who apparently was babysitting Clemens' kids at Jose Canseco's now famous Miami party, which is just where you'd want your kids for safekeeping, and where, according to McNamee, Clemens and Canseco first discussed steroids.

Canseco Not Quite Sure

Canseco now says Clemens was not there. Heck, we could probably convince Jose he wasn't there himself. Clemens, meanwhile, has produced an alibi of sorts: a 10-year-old receipt from a golf course from Jose Party Day. And I'm sure, in a box somewhere, he has the grass from the divots he didn't replace.

One goob congressman apologized after grilling Clemens, saying Clemens was one of his heroes. Another asked Clemens which team cap he'd wear into the Hall of Fame, as if this will be a pressing issue in the next several million years.

Representatives Dan Burton and Christopher Shays torched McNamee. Burton pointed out McNamee's small habit of lying and lying, while Shays simply labeled McNamee a "drug dealer." Man, I'm glad I took Burton and Shays in my Congressional Steroids Hearings fantasy draft.

Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton asked Clemens why he kept employing McNamee despite McNamee's lies.

"I'm a forgiving person," Clemens said.

That was good enough for Rep. Norton.

"Mr. Clemens, all I can say is, I'm sure you're going to heaven."

Go ahead. Try and make this stuff up.

McNamee said he still has syringes and bloody gauze from his Clemens days, and leftover steroids, which he would be happy to turn over. So if you're ever in Washington, D.C., and go to a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee softball game, and they're really creaming the ball, well ...

The Yankees have given Andy Pettitte permission to report late to training camp. No word on whether McNamee and Clemens will have to report to perjury trial.

At least we know Roger Clemens is going to heaven, unless, of course, someone up there misremembers and doesn't let him in.

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