NEW YORK — Brian McNamee said he couldn’t risk lying to federal agents when they asked him about Roger Clemens and performance-enhancing drugs.
McNamee, the pitcher’s former trainer, spoke on “The Howard Stern Show” on Monday as a federal grand jury in Washington looks into whether Clemens lied to Congress.
“You just think of circumstances,” McNamee said. “It wasn’t worth that risk of that being over my head for six years — that’s the term they have to investigate you and convene a grand jury.”
McNamee has told federal agents, baseball investigator George Mitchell and a House of Representatives committee that he injected Clemens more than a dozen times with steroids and human growth hormone from 1998-01.
Stern conceded he didn’t know much about the Clemens case. The approximately 45-minute interview was more classic Stern than ESPN, complete with innuendo-laced questions about McNamee injecting Clemens’ wife with HGH.
Asked if Clemens would have been a Hall of Famer without performance-enhancing drugs, McNamee said: “He left Boston in ’96; if he never played after ’96, he was a Hall of Famer.”
Feds push for admission of Bonds’ steroids tests
SAN FRANCISCO — Federal prosecutors are again asking a judge to let them show a jury three drug test results they say show Barry Bonds used steroids.
The judge said last week she was inclined to throw out those results unless someone could directly testify to collecting the slugger’s urine samples. The likeliest candidate to be able to do so is Bonds’ former trainer, Greg Anderson. A lawyer for Anderson has said his client won’t testify at Bonds’ upcoming trial.
In a court filing, prosecutors included snippets of Bonds’ grand jury testimony saying Anderson collected the samples.
Bonds is charged with lying to a grand jury about alleged steroid use.
Footnotes.
Brewers general manager Doug Melvin said he was “optimistic” about the possibility of signing right-hander Braden Looper, who has a career record of 58-58 with a 3.93 ERA.
• Infielder Rich Aurilia returned for another season with the Giants, agreeing to a minor-league.
• The Cardinals released Adam Kennedy, leaving the second-base job up for grabs with just a week to go before spring training.
• Rays reliever Chad Bradford is expected to be sidelined three to four months after undergoing arthroscopic surgery on his right elbow.
The Associated Press
