Hot off the Detroit News presses. Roger Clemens may have been framed, or so says Jerry Green.
My rooted image of Roger Clemens was that he was a self-serving blowhard with a preening gait and a frightening fastball who never minded sticking the ball into some batter's ribs. He pitched with excellence, and he knew it.
That notion has not changed.
But America's perception of Clemens, the most successful pitcher of the past quarter-century, has changed from the excellent to the terrible.
He has become the poster person of Major League Baseball's accusatory Mitchell Report. The fingering of Clemens as a user of steroids and human growth hormones was the most shocking revelation of the condemning document.
What bothers me is Roger might have been framed!
We truly don’t know.
George Mitchell, the former senator from Maine, has attested he conducted a thorough investigation before writing the 409-page report. He has said the testimony of his witnesses was truthful and believable.
The testimony is likely going to prevent Clemens from going to the Baseball Hall of Fame and send him instead into baseball’s purgatory.
What bothers me is Mitchell might have been dreadfully gullible.
He based his condemnation of Clemens on evidence supplied by one stool pigeon who himself was faced with a jail term. So the voice sang essentially to save his butt.
What bothers me also is Roger Clemens, if ultimately exonerated, would never get the smear off of him.
And what bothers me most of all is I believe Roger Clemens and his pleas of innocence -- and I wind up more gullible than George Mitchell.
Great, great stuff. According to Mr. Green, this may become the day the music died.
