Well the battle has now officially begun; William Roger Clemens has filed a Defamation of Character lawsuit against Brian McNamee for naming him in the Mitchell Report. The law suit was filed right where I actually perform my "real-life" job functions, in the Harris County Courthouse. Clemens filed the suit Sunday night in Harris County District Court in Texas, listing 15 alleged statements McNamee made to the baseball drug investigator George Mitchell. Clemens claimed the statement were "untrue and defamatory." The suit being filed happened at almost the same time that Roger appeared on 60 minutes in an interview with Mike Wallace, a long-time Clemens friend, where Clemens denied taking any performance enhancing drugs and went on to state: "If he's doing that to me, I should have a third ear coming out of my forehead. I should be pulling tractors with my teeth," said Clemens, who wore a lavender button-down shirt during the interview, taped Dec. 28 at his home in Katy, Texas.

To me the toughest question that the "Rocket" faced during the 60 minute interview concerned Roger's willingness to take a lie-detector test. Roger's reply was "Yeah," he answered. "I don't know if they're good or bad." Like maybe the lie-detector test would also cause him to grow something extra. Now we going to spend tons more tax-payer money conducting yet additional Congressional hearings in Washington to determine what exactly, that a person who was facing sever criminal penalties, including jail time, took a deal from Federal Prosecutors to reveal the name or names of players involved in taking steroids or growth hormones. Then if McNamee lied, the deal is off, and besides facing the prison time for those charges, would face even harsher prison time for lying under oath during his testimony, so where exactly is his incentive to lie about Roger Clemens? Was there a threat to give McNamee some sort of "double secret probation" from Dean Wormer, if he didn't make up lies about Roger Clemens? I don't know, I really don't know. Funny thing about the Defamation suit, it didn't ask for any monetary damages for Roger, instead saying that they would let the jury/court decide that. Trust me on this, after 30 plus years' working here that is rarely done, and when it is, they usually get what they ask for.....

Baseball is the one sport where the contradiction or breaking of their rules is more acceptable than any other sport I know of. Let's face it, I can name right off hand a player who is more known as being a "cheater" of their rules through-out his entire career than for his accomplishments and yet he was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame; that person would be pitcher Gaylord Perry. Greg Maddox is another recent pitcher, who, while not being accused of taking performance enhancing drugs, but "rumored" to also having "doctored" a baseball is pretty much a "shoe-in" for the Hall of Fame once he retires.

Bottom line that I have to decide is who is telling the truth on this issue. On one side I have a player, a person who I have been familiar with for more than 30 years since he was in the Houston area for his high school career, then less than 300 miles away for his college career and in the national spot light for the next 25 years, as opposed to a person who I only know for naming players who he either sold drugs to, or provided them to or injected them. I have to go back to my previous comments in this article, in that I just don't see the rational for someone to lie while under oath testifying....

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