Sports > February 21, 2008

By Nick Oliphant | Staff writer

My girlfriend and my best friend have become drug addicts over the past few months. Sad, but true. Now everyone who knows them is blaming me for not doing anything about it. But, how could I know? Just because they are my best friend and my girlfriend, who I combined must spend all of my day with, doesn’t mean I would realize that they had both picked up a dangerous and illegal habit. Do you believe me? I didn’t think so.

Now, that story was not true. But it is pretty much the same story that Roger Clemens has been spewing to Congress and the media ever since the Mitchell report came out. He maintains that he never knew his wife and best friend, Andy Pettitte, were using HGH (Human Growth Hormone) until after the fact. Andy Pettitte claims that Roger talked to him about HGH in 2000 and then years later said that Andy had misunderstood the conversation. Since Clemens’ wife has remained out of the public eye, there are only two players to judge in this drug triangle. In a classic he said, he said; let’s take a look at the credibility of the two parties.

Andy Pettitte appears direct and sincere during his press conferences. The only comment he has made that scares me is that he believes what he did wasn’t cheating.

Sure, maybe at the time Major League Baseball wasn’t testing, and maybe he only did use HGH for two days to recover from an injury, but he still cheated. However, his only real lie is to himself, so I’m willing to let it slide.

Roger Clemens, on the other hand, has used every trick in the book to try to get the media on his side without really offering strong evidence that he didn’t cheat.

Even Barack Obama would be appalled at his use of irrelevant sob stories.

Fact is, Roger isn’t the only person in the world who grew up poor, used his athleticism to get into college and then had a successful professional career.

Roughly 99.9 percent of the players in the NBA share the same story, and the only trouble it gets them into is an ugly incident at a strip club every once and awhile.

I just don’t see too many people shedding tears over Roger Clemens’ sad story.

The third major player in this controversy is Brian McNamee, the former trainer of both Clemens and Pettitte. He has been on the defense from day one as pretty much everyone and their brother has called him a liar. Even some congressmen could not restrain themselves from such declarations. And I understand, he lied about things in the past. But wasn’t he lying about supplying HGH to major leaguers? Isn’t this what happens when you lie about something and then come forward about it?

During this era of steroids in baseball, I find it much more plausible that a trainer lied about supplying steroids and then came out with the truth, as opposed to telling the truth, and then years later deciding to lie about it. So, while not the ideal witness, I find him more believable than Clemens.

We may never know the absolute truth in this whole mess, but right now I believe Pettitte and McNamee a lot more than I believe Clemens, which should say something given that he is one of the greatest pitchers ever.

If Clemens wants to change my mind, he needs to get away from trying to be this poor kid from Texas who worked so hard to get where he is, because he knew his family depended on him.

That routine is about as dumb as deciding that Vanderbilt should be our sports rival (seriously, aren’t there about 10 schools that make more sense? Or a better question, would we ever get an atmosphere for Vanderbilt like we did against Duke on Sunday?).

Clemens should now go one of two ways.

Option one is to find some serious evidence that he didn’t cheat, which for me would be a tape of Brian McNamee undergoing fingerprint, retinal, voice and DNA confirmation to prove his identity and then swearing while attached to nine polygraphs that he is lying about Roger Clemens’ use of HGH.

Option two, which I find more realistic, is that Clemens should admit to his HGH use, come up with a sob story about how he only was going to use it once, or that he just wanted to win a title before his career was over, or that a little kid with cancer made him promise to get to 350 career wins and then he should tour the country speaking out against performance-enhancing drugs.

He may taint his records, but his image could recover if he acts swiftly.

As Pete Rose has taught us, an admission 30 years after the fact really doesn’t appeal to the public.

I hope Clemens can come away from this the right way.

He has been a role model for kids and congressmen alike; it would be nice to see him do something now to earn that billing.