Roger's Congressional hearing has come and gone. He wanted his "day in court," so to speak. To say it didn't go well is an understatement.
I am saddened by one powerful fact:
Roger Clemens spent virtually an entire lifetime building and shaping a Hall of Fame career and in a incredibly short period of time, much of that is now in question. I think he'll still make his way into The Hall, but it won't be a cakewalk and his image has of course been tarnished to millions.
What were his choices?
Well, there were two sets of choices. The first set deals with the scenario that he was being absolutely truthful and he never took performance enhancing drugs. In this scenario, he got really bad advice from his attorney. The forum of being in front of a Congressional committee on national TV didn't serve him well...even if he was being totally candid. You just never know what other "evidence" is out there that can make your testimony look weak. He was only partially prepared for the cross-examination he underwent. An attorney failing for sure.
The next scenario of course is that he did take performance enhancing drugs of some kind at some time. If he did but was freaked out about revealing this and the consequences this would bring, he grossly underestimated the capacity to forgive (that most of us possess). Maybe he just wanted the world to believe he had a lilly-white record and he'd do whatever he could do to preserve that illusion. Don't know. But if he had opted to give us the straight scoop and do so without claiming he had JUST found religion AND do so without trivializing what he did by saying he only did it "to help his teammates," then he'd be in REALLY great shape right now.
But he's not in great shape now.
What can he do to repair the scene? Setting the record straight after misleading (also known as lying to) millions of people is NOT an easy path, but it can be done. Don't make it super-eloquent. Don't read from a tele-prompter. Just tell us what you did, why, why you didn't tell us the truth when you were in front of the cameras the last time. We be human beings out here, Roger. We've all done things we wished we hadn't. It's how we deal with that type of thing that matters.
You can come through this, Roger. I'm behind you. So are millions of others.
But then again, if you never took a single performance enhancing drug and you absolutely stand by that, then I'm going to respect that too. It's just hard, Roger, for many of us to sign off on that.
Good luck.
