Will Congress summon Clemens?

Wednesday, December 19, 2007 | Feedback | Print Entry

There are 1,000 loose steroid- and HGH-related threads now, and they will be yanked and pulled for months to come, but none bigger than Roger Clemens' fight for his credibility. He released a strongly worded statement, which said, flatly and unequivocally, that he has never used performance-enhancing drugs: "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. Those substances represent a dangerous and destructive shortcut that no athlete should ever take."

The lawyer for Brian McNamee, Clemens' former trainer, challenged the pitcher's statement, within this piece by Jack Curry and Duff Wilson. And some lawyers in baseball, on Tuesday evening, already envisioned an inevitable scenario of a he-said, he-said showdown in Congress involving McNamee, Clemens and perhaps even Andy Pettitte.  
 

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  • Buster Olney Buster Olney

    Buster Olney is a senior writer at ESPN The Magazine. He began covering baseball in 1989, as the Nashville Banner's beat reporter assigned to the Triple-A Nashville Sounds. Later, he covered the San Diego Padres (1993-94), the Baltimore Orioles ('95-96), the New York Mets ('97) and the Yankees ('98-2001). Olney joined ESPN The Magazine in 2003, after six years at The New York Times, and he's the author of the Times' best-seller "The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty," a book about the Paul O'Neill-Tino Martinez Yankees dynasty of 1996-01.

    He grew up in central Vermont collecting baseball cards and listening to Red Sox, Expos, Phillies and Pirates radio broadcasts, and was a rabid fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He graduated from Vanderbilt University the same year as hoops legend Will Perdue, and ranks among the all-time leading scorers in pickup basketball at Memorial Gym. He claims to have witnessed the Commodores' winning football season in 1982 (although anthropologists have not yet confirmed this).

    Olney also contributes to ESPN.com, ESPN Radio, ESPNEWS, "SportsCenter" and "Baseball Tonight."

    Follow Buster on Twitter: @Buster_ESPN

    Ask Buster a question: Buster's Mailbag

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