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All Pride Aside

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Andy Pettitte of the New York Yankees speaks to the media during his press conference to discuss his HGH (Human Growth Hormone) use on February 18, 2008 at Legends Field in Tampa, Florida.

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By JOE HENDERSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 19, 2008

Updated: 02/18/2008 11:11 pm

TAMPA - New York Yankees pitcher Andy Pettitte built a reputation in baseball as a low-key guy whom people naturally like to be around. That's pretty much shot now.

It's a powerful thing when you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and all that jazz - especially when the truth has a double-barreled blast that can both splatter your good name and possibly ruin a friendship with your best buddy. But you can't run from it, so there Pettitte was Monday afternoon at Legends Field, trying to deal with the fallout of a scandal that seemingly has no end.

It's questionable what was more painful for Pettitte: the admission that he used human growth hormone illegally, or his assertion to investigators that his soon-to-be-former best friend Roger Clemens also used the stuff. Pettitte said Clemens told him about the HGH use; Clemens says Pettitte "misremembered" their conversation.

Pettitte spoke for an hour at Legends before about a hundred reporters and a national TV audience. The man from Deer Park, Texas, looked like a fawn caught on the interstate while a convoy of runaway 18-wheelers closed in with their high beams on. It was sad to behold.

It wasn't what he said so much. It was the fact he had to say it at all.

That's where the quiet man is right now - star witness for the prosecution in the star chamber who has to resort to subpoenas to clean up baseball because baseball wouldn't do the job itself. Although he is far from the only player caught in this web, he is proof there is no such thing as a small indiscretion when it comes to the use of performance-enhancing drugs.

"I can tell you one thing," he said. "If you're doing anything and you see what I've been put through and what Roger has been put through, I think you'd clean yourself up pretty quick. If somebody has been trying to make a point, I think the point has been made pretty good."

Caught In A Web

Pettitte apologized to just about everyone - his teammates, former teammates, fans and kids. It's a little late for that, though. Even now as he is coming clean, so to speak, new holes in his story keep appearing. The New York Daily News reported Sunday that Pettitte's father had actually obtained the HGH for his son in 2002.

Pettitte had failed to mention that little detail.

"I am sorry for not telling the whole truth in my original statement," he said.

But he also signed a one-year, $16 million contract with the Yankees the day before the Mitchell Report was released. Pettitte knew for several days that his name would be in the report but never told the Yankees.

Another omission.

Maybe the Yankees would have withdrawn the offer. Maybe they would have signed him anyway. We'll never know for sure though, will we?

"I'm not going to even bother putting myself there," Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said. "You can't look back."

Now, Cashman could have said that it would have made no difference, but he didn't. Read into that what you will.

And while you're there, catch up on the body language of three of Pettitte's teammates - Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada, who attended the news conference. They sat stone-faced, arms mostly crossed against their chests, while Pettitte spoke. Jeter hugged Pettitte afterward, but it's legitimate to wonder about his standing in the clubhouse right now.

"We all have made decisions in life that we look back on and go, 'Hummm, I wish I could have done that different,'" Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. "But that's not how it works."

Won't End Here

Every time Pettitte wins a game now, at least some fans will think it's because he cheated. Every time there is a story about Clemens, reporters will fill the Yankees clubhouse and rush to Pettitte's locker.

And what happens if reporters find another hole in Pettitte's story? You know they'll be trying - as they should.

"There are no other surprises out there," Pettitte said, but we'd best take a wait-and-see attitude about that.

You can say that Pettitte at least tried to make things right with the public Monday, but it's not like he could have sneaked into camp unnoticed - "Hey Andy! Didn't I read something about you in the papers? What was it ...."

A big news conference, while not pleasant, was probably the easiest way for him to simply get this over with. Or try to get it over with.

"Whatever circumstances or repercussions come with it, I'll take and I'll take like a man and I'll try to do my job," he said.

Those circumstances and repercussions can be pretty rough, though. It starts with a shattered friendship and goes downhill from there. Ironic, isn't it, that all this started with a "growth" drug that was supposed to "enhance" a body.

One look at Andy Pettitte on Monday would tell you that of all the lies, that one might be the worst of all.

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