It wasn’t too long ago that kids watched baseball to learn work ethic and valuable hitting or fielding techniques.
Now, they can turn on the TV and receive an education on excuses: deny, justify and alibi. Consider it the new Tinker to Evers to Chance.
It’s disturbing how freely the excuses and flimsy explanations flow, driven home by the Roger Clemens hearing Wednesday in front of Congress. Clemens, baseball’s John Wayne, denied ever using steroids or HGH, said former trainer Brian McNamee never injected him and asserted that he had never heard of HGH before the Mitchell report.
To believe that, you must accept that Andy Pettitte and his wife are liars, that Clemens’ spouse, Debbie, took HGH supplied by McNamee without the pitcher’s knowledge and that last weekend’s visit with his former nanny, their first contact in seven years, was a delightful coinci- dence and not witness tampering.
Clemens’ story had more holes than his favorite golf course (perhaps the one he played while Jose Canseco was holding his infamous Blue Jays barbecue). Not that McNamee produced any Matlock moments. To believe him, you have to reconcile his partial truths, faulty memory and weasel nature.
“I hate to pass judgment, but both seemed sketchy,” said Texas Rangers pitcher Jason Jennings.
Jennings grew up a Clemens fan and had posters of the guy on his wall. He admitted it’s been difficult watching Clemens’ legacy dissolve on reality TV, but stressed, “As a fellow player, it’s still hard for me not to consider him one of the best ever.”
Players embrace the opening of spring training, the sport’s natural air freshener. They want to talk about chemistry, not testimony. About awards, not steroids. But some are becoming irritated with the Mitchell fallout. It’s bad enough that the drug use taints the sport. The explanations, say some, make the players — the majority of whom don’t cheat — look worse.
Indians pitcher Paul Byrd said he used because doctors diagnosed him with a deficiency of adult- growth hormone; Darren Holmes said he bought HGH but never used it; Rick Ankiel cited recovery from injury, as did Fernando Viña. Pettitte, well, you get the idea.
To move forward, baseball needs more guys to fall on their sword like Matt Herges and F.P. Santangelo. It’s hard for the sport to get clean when those caught won’t come clean.
“It bugs me with what some of these guys are saying, the reasons they give. You did something wrong, admit it, so we can go play ball,” said Nationals reliever Ray King, who is on the union’s executive board. “It’s time for guys to step up.”
That will likely never happen with Clemens. He’s sticking to his story. So the public circus Wednesday brought a salient question: What have we learned?
That there are no limits that baseball can suffer every time it shows up on Capitol Hill.
It’s time for baseball’s good guys — and they far outnumber the jerks — to drag this sport back into the sunshine with their accountability, with their willingness to tackle HGH blood testing if necessary.
No excuses.
Footnotes.
The Rockies should try to bring Josh Fogg into camp and throw him into the fifth-starter mix. Fogg also projects as a long reliever. . . . Mike Hampton looks good early in Braves’ camp. He has relocated his family to Phoenix, which means he could make a pitch to the Diamondbacks as a free agent next year. . . . Dodger Jason Schmidt is recovering slowly from surgery and probably won’t be a factor for months.
