Rocket's Dilemma

While Andy Pettitte has admitted his mistakes after being identified by the Mitchell report, Roger Clemens has taken a very different approach. From the start, Clemens has strongly denied the accusations thrown his way from the Mitchell report. Clemens finally broke his silence in a stronger way by releasing this statement, "I want to state clearly and without qualification: I did not take steroids, human growth hormone or any other banned substances at any time in my baseball career or, in fact, my entire life," Clemens said in a statement issued by his agent. "Those substances represent a dangerous and destructive shortcut that no athlete should ever take." Pretty strong words, but that’s really all they are, just words. It has now become a battle of the words now, Clemens’ word vs. McNamee’s. In a different instance, I said I would believe Pettitte’s word after his admission, but this is a bit different. This time there is some reason to doubt what Clemens says since there is a witness whose testimony contradicts Clemens. Since there is still a lot left to be learned about this subject, I for one will be withholding judgment until more information becomes available. Clemens could help his case with more then a statement though, especially with something like a lawsuit against the Mitchell investigation or McNamee himself for slander or by taking a lie detector test. Either way, it is important for people to not jump to conclusions right away. After all, some people may remember right as the Mitchell list was being revealed that many inaccurate lists were produced with many players’ names who were not actually meant to be there. So I plead for everyone to wait until they declare one of the greatest pitchers of all time guilty, wait at least until he has a chance to fully defend himself.