He was one of baseball’s greatest pitchers. But Roger Clemens’ downfall accelerated on Thursday when he was indicted by a federal grand jury for lying to Congress about his use of performance-enhancing drugs.
Federal prosecutors have been building their case ever since Clemens testified under oath before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in 2008.
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But it was another sad day for a sport still recovering from the drug controversies that have plagued it since 2003 — when former San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds was questioned by a federal grand jury in the infamous BALCO trial.
“Players like Bonds and Clemens spend their entire baseball lives being treated well and differently,” former MLB commissioner Fay Vincent wrote in a column for FoxNews.com. “Like movie stars and some misguided politicians and businessmen, they come to the conclusion the rules of civil conduct, decent behavior and even the criminal laws cannot subject them to the same standards as the rest of us.”
Clemens, a seven-time Cy Young Award winner during his 24-year career, hasn’t pitched since 2007, his final season with the New York Yankees. His reputation is in ruins but some former teammates remain supportive.
“Until it’s proven one way or another, I’m not going to sit in judgment,” Yankees first baseman Lance Berkman, a teammate of Clemens’ with the Houston Astros from 2004 to 2006, told reporters in New York on Thursday. “That whole era is just a black mark for all of us and the quicker we get past this, the better off we’ll all be.”
But no matter the outcome of a perjury trial, the suspicions surrounding Clemens’ use of performance-enhancing drugs remain. He was the most prominent player mentioned in the Mitchell Report, a 21-month investigation into the use of steroids and other illegal substances by Major League Baseball in 2007.
“By any stat measure this is one of the three greatest pitchers in history of baseball. And with this latest news and what we’ve known for the last two years I don’t see him getting into the Hall of Fame any time soon,” ESPN baseball writer Tim Kurkjian, a Bethesda native, said Thursday. “There will be an imaginary asterisk over his name for the rest of time. … It’s very unfortunate, but he brought it all upon himself.”
