The Roger Clemens Defense: Throw Everyone Under the Bus

This is supposed to be a Giants-centric blog that we are launching today, but this Clemens situation seems to trump everything that's going on with the orange and black today.

Roger Clemens made the most poignant description of his defense strategy - of anyone at today's congressional hearing - after reading a statement from his wife. You see, Debbie Clemens has come into the picture following testimony from Brian McNamee (the pitcher's former trainer - if you don't know already) that he also injected her with HGH. This is true, however, according to Debbie's statement, she was coaxed into it by the trainer, and later decided against further injections when her husband came home and instructed her it was not a good idea. "She told me she feels like a pawn in this game," Clemens said after reading a statement from Debbie. He's right about her being a pawn, but just whose game are we talking about?

Debbie's assertion is that she absentmindedly took HGH under the watch of an evil trainer, only to later be corrected by her holier-than-thou husband. It's indicative of the web Clemens has wound - a web that places fault strictly on everyone but himself. When testifying before congress today, Clemens spoke in abstracts. When asked questions about facts, he went into diatribes about his Cy Young awards, 20 strike out games, and how he wants to teach the youth about conditioning. At other points, he defended himself as simply being out of the loop - he wasn't in the house when his trainer injected his wife; his best friend didn't tell him about obtaining HGH from the same trainer; another teammate neglected to tell him about receiving HGH from the same trainer. And as for why Roger did not take his opportunity to sit down with Senator Mitchell prior to the release of the report ... well, no one told him about it. The players union knew, Bud Selig knew, and Clemens's agents knew, but they just decided to decline on his behalf. Is this sounding fishy to anyone?

Clemens by all means should have the opportunity to defend himself, but this whole "I'm just working so hard training to win more Cy Youngs and triple crown awards, that I guess everybody forgot to tell me what was going on" defense is about as solid as saying you thought it was flaxseed oil. And don't even get me started on this raging party at Jose Canseco's house that everyone wants to talk about ad nauseum.

OK ... hopefully we can start talking about the San Francisco Giants real soon. I'm sure commentary on the hearing will start rolling in any minute now at the major outlets. For insight into what was said, check out the transcript of Jayson Stark's live blogging.