Clemens Trainer Delivers Syringe Pics
Feb. 8, 2008 — -- WASHINGTON -- His face-to-face lobbying efforts not quite complete, Roger Clemens was back on Capitol Hill on Friday with two lawyers and a PR person in tow.
The seven-time Cy Young Award winner began a second day of informal sit-downs with members of the congressional committee looking into the Mitchell report on drug use in baseball -- and, more specifically, looking into Clemens' denials of allegations by his former personal trainer, Brian McNamee, about injections of steroids and human growth hormone.
After meeting with about a dozen representatives Thursday, Clemens was slated to meet with another six Friday. He arrived at the office of Rep. Danny Davis, an Illinois Democrat, shortly after 9:30 a.m.
"It's highly unusual, and that's why I think one would try to determine the rationale for it. What is he trying to accomplish?" Davis said in an interview with The Associated Press before Clemens arrived. "I am willing to hear him out and hear what he has to say."
The world gets a chance to hear what Clemens will say under oath Wednesday, when he, McNamee and New York Yankees pitcher Andy Pettitte are to testify at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing. Until then, the committee is investigating.
Clemens gave a sworn deposition Tuesday. McNamee's turn came Thursday, when he met for seven hours with congressional lawyers.
During McNamee's deposition, his lawyers showed the committee photographs of syringes and vials and even a crumpled beer can. McNamee's lawyers say the items, when tested, will link Clemens to the use of performance-enhancing drugs.
In the Mitchell report, McNamee said he injected Clemens more than a dozen times with steroids and HGH in 1998, 2000 and 2001. Clemens has repeatedly denied those allegations.
"Roger Clemens has put himself in a position where his legacy as the greatest pitcher in baseball will depend less on his ERA and more on his DNA," one of McNamee's lawyers, Earl Ward, said Thursday.
Less than an hour later, not far away in the Rayburn House Office Building, Clemens and his attorneys held their own news conference. Clemens said little, but his lawyers repeatedly attacked McNamee's character and scoffed at the newly presented evidence.
