Roger Clemens and the Steroids ERA

I did not expect to post today but in light of the dark cloud of steroids that does not seem to be going away even in January, I figured I would talk about it.

There is news that Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte along with their former trainer Brian McNamee are going to testify before a congressional committee in a couple of weeks. I am not really sure how much will come out of this congressional session but I guess maybe putting these guys under oath, someone will crack like Mark McGwire's "I'm not here to talk about the past". Only time will tell... currently the committee is set for January 16th, so the countdown begins.

Roger Clemens clearly said on December 18th, "I want to state clearly and without qualification: I did not take steroids, human growth hormone or any other banned substances at any time in my baseball career or, in fact, my entire life." That could not be more opposite to the one Brian McNamee gave Senator Mitchell where he said he injected Roger Clemens multiple times. It is hard to say who is correct and certainly Roger Clemens is in a tough spot with his teammate and close friend Andy Pettitte admitting that McNamee injected him two to four times with Human Growth Hormones while he was injured in 2002.

Right about now, it is probably impossible to say who is right and who is wrong, but the one question I would like Roger Clemens to answer is how he produced his 2nd best full regular season numbers at the age of 35 in 1997 with a 2.05 ERA (league average 4.53) when he won the CY Young Award and followed it up with another CY Young year in '98 with 20-6 and a 2.65 ERA. I just do not get how a pitcher who was let go by the Boston Red Sox after 12 years and seemed a little washed up posted up numbers like where the average ERA around the league dropped only 0.5 runs, that a pitcher his age drops his numbers 3 times the league average. I just have a hard time believing it was only his work regiment that led to that change... once again at the age of 35.

I never really had a lot of respect for Clemens but the little amount i did, I lost it when he threw the piece of bat at Mike Piazza in the 2000 World Series. I never really bought into his hype of retiring and coming back to help teams half way through the season with all his perks in his contract and certainly if all of these allegations about steroids and human growth hormones turn out to be true... kiss the Hall of Fame good bye Mr. Clemens.

I guess I needed to get that out of my system... so now this a relaxed Brown Guy signing off...