Is Roger Clemens Becoming Baseball's Pariah?

Roger Clemens' fight to clear his name may mark him as a baseball pariah for trying to bully his way out of trouble.

Kevin Fujii: Chronicle

Clemens on treadmill he can't get off

AT this rate, Roger Clemens will end up with more all-star lawyers on his payroll than Cy Young Awards on his mantel.

Clemens added Washington, D.C., heavy hitter Lanny Breuer to the legal team he assembled to fight for his good name. Feel free to presume Breuer, who represented Bill Clinton during the former president's impeachment hearings, will strongly advise against Clemens telling any of his inquisitors, "It depends on what your definition of steroids is."

The thing to read into Clemens enlisting someone who knows his way around the inside of the Beltway is this: The stakes from the release of the Mitchell Report are escalating faster than baseball salaries and revenues. An unbinding report about the use of performance-enhancing drugs has mutated into a congressional cause.

Other dangers lurking

Clemens isn't merely fighting to avoid spending the rest of his life known as Roidger the baseball outlaw anymore. He's in danger of becoming a baseball pariah, scorned for trying to bully and bluster his way out of trouble with no regard for whom or what he might destroy around him.

Clemens needs to be more careful than if Barry Bonds were at the plate with the bases loaded. If Clemens can't convince the right people he's more credible than his personal trainer-turned-accuser, then he could face felony charges and possible jail time.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wants Clemens and accuser Brian McNamee to give depositions or meet with investigators in preparation for a Feb. 13 hearing.

And that's not the half of it.

Sucked into the Clemens vortex are his good friend, Andy Pettitte, and former New York Yankees teammate Chuck Knoblauch. Among the collateral damage is Astros shortstop Miguel Tejada, who got in the cross hairs of Congress and the FBI only after Clemens and attorney Rusty Hardin started rattling sabers about the Mitchell Report.

Any second thoughts?

There's no telling where the next canceled check or dirty syringe or medical record will drop. The deeper into this Clemens gets, the more it conjures images of George Jetson, feet pumping furiously, unable to keep up with the treadmill, yelling, "Jane! Stop this crazy thing!"

You have to wonder: Does Clemens, in his most private thoughts, wish he could go back and stop this crazy thing? Does he long to go back to the Dec. 13 day the Mitchell Report went public and do things differently?

If Clemens has been full of bluster and bravado, he could have saved himself a lot of aggravation — and lawyers' fees — by slinking off into the private sector. If Clemens is a victim of circumstance, then he'll have to live with knowing those circumstances were largely his making.

The Mitchell Report named 86 players. The only two players to come out and contest the findings have been David Justice and Clemens. Justice came out immediately to clear his name — spontaneous, unrehearsed and believable. At the time, Justice offered this advice to Clemens: "He should be doing what I'm doing. He should be talking about it."

Instead, Clemens acted in a manner most people would not associate with innocence. He enlisted agents and lawyers to do his damage control, leaving the masses with the impression he had something to hide. That might be the preferable strategy for a trial, but it's a lousy way to get a favorable verdict in the court of public opinion.

Plain and simple, Clemens could have kept Congress off his back by confronting the accusations head-on rather than assembling a legal team. Superstar pitcher that he is, he had a huge benefit-of-the-doubt advantage over an anonymous trainer once suspected, though never charged, with date rape. What Clemens gained in legal advice, he more than lost in presumed credibility. By the time Clemens spoke for himself, the general public saw him through the prism of someone who had some of the best legal coaching money could buy.

He ranted about people not giving him "an inch." He raved at a news conference, storming out when he didn't like the questions. He surreptitiously taped a conversation with his accuser, leaving many to wonder if he'd go to any lengths to gain an advantage.

You have to wonder: In baseball commissioner Bud Selig's most private thoughts, does he wish he could go back and stop this crazy thing? Does Selig really think there is a greater good served by smearing the names of mostly retired players with evidence that wouldn't stand up on its own in a court of law?

The time, effort and money spent on the Mitchell Report could have gone into cleaning up baseball in the present and future. Instead of destructive wallowing in the past, baseball could have done something constructive.

Right or wrong, this is where we are. We can't vaporize the report. We can't pretend it never happened, especially because so few players contested the findings.

Maybe Clemens is an incredibly unlucky man caught in a perfect storm of suspicion and impossible-to-prove-false accusations. Maybe Clemens is an incredibly proud man in the middle of a tragic fall from grace caused by his hubris.

Soon enough, Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee will be legally bound to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Clemens has his version, McNamee has his. And if both men stick to their stories, exactly how do we decide whose truth is the truth?

steve.campbell@chron.com

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