Rep. Henry Waxman of California to the NEW YORK TIMES today on Roger Clemens’ congressional hearing, “I’m sorry we had the hearing. I regret that we had the hearing. And the only reason we had the hearing was because Roger Clemens and his lawyers insisted on it.”

Waxman oversaw the hearing, which he claims “sullied” Clemens and unnecessarily embarrassed Brian McNamee. He also claims that because of the hearing, 90% of the public now doesn’t believe the former pitcher.

To us, the only thing the hearing proved was we were wrong about Clemens’ counsel, Rusty Hardin. Read more…

‘Duk of Yahoo Sports’ new BIG LEAGUE STEW blog scares out a gem from Brian McNamee’s deposition to Federal investigators about the party he claimed Roger Clemens attended at Jose Canseco’s house. McNamee:

“Roger showed up after golf, I believe. Maybe he was golfing. I don’t know if he was golfing. He might have showed up a little bit later, but no, he was there the whole time for the most part. He was in the house. I could tell a specific story about him being there, which was involving Jose (Canseco), Jose’s wife and Roger’s wife when they went inside, when the guys showed up. I mean, they talked — no disrespect, but they talked about how great Jose’s wife’s augmentation job was to Debbie and showed her. And then Debbie showed her her augmentation job.”

This whole thing keeps getting weirder and weirder. With Clemens’ kids in mind, it’s starting to get to the point where we hope nothing more comes out about him and his wife’s *lifestyle* unless someone emails photos to us directly.

Brian McNamee’s lawyer, Richard Emery, told Ronald Blum of the ASSOCIATED PRESS today that he thinks if Roger Clemens gets convicted “in connection with the baseball steroids scandal, he’d be pardoned by President Bush.”

He also said “some Republicans treated his client harshly because of the pitcher’s friendship with the Bush family.” Read more…

The Congressional hearing involving Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee has ended. As expected, nothing exciting or unexpected was exposed. The only question that remains is if we’ll soon see Clemens in a courtroom getting cross-examined by Federal investigators. We doubt it.

The only person who can really foil Clemens’ great escape now from the Feds is Andy Pettitte. But Pettitte doesn’t have the stomach to pursue the matter further, ‘else he would’ve been sitting next to his *buddy* today.

For us, here’s the highlight of the day: Indiana Representative Dan Burton attacks McNamee:

By now, you’re likely familiar with the saga of Nevada high school offensive lineman Kevin Hart, who made up a nice little ruse about being recruited by Cal and Oregon, complete with press conference and hat selection.

He eventually owned up to his hoax, but there may be a happy ending in all of this. Despite the ruse, someone is still interested in possibly giving him a scholarship, according to KPTV in Portland: “FOX 12 reported that Portland State University football coaches said they have called Kevin Hart’s high school, requesting footage of the lineman.” Hart’s grandfather says Kevin just made a mistake, and he’d be happy to send any game tape to the university.

Read more…

Now this is really getting fun sad. A source tells the NEW YORK DAILY NEWS today that “Brian McNamee told congressional investigators Thursday that he injected Roger Clemens’ wife with human growth hormone before she appeared with the pitcher in Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue in 2003, according to a Washington source.

“Debbie Clemens appeared with her husband in a photograph taken in Central Park in the magazine’s Feb. 18, 2003 issue wearing a bikini and holding a bat over her shoulders while Roger Clemens reclined on the ground in his Yankee uniform. McNamee testified that he injected her at Roger Clemens’ direction, according to the source.”

Source: “She was trying to get in shape for the SI cover. He (McNamee) told them the story that Debbie took growth.”

With McNamee providing these sorts of details, it’s now clear that steroids and HGH aren’t what’s at issue anymore. It’s about a soul-crushing crusade against everything Clemens holds dear. We can hardly wait for McNamee to next reveal Granny Clemens’ steroid injections after her late ’90s bout with Shingles.

Remember last year when new Phoenix Suns center Shaquille O’Neal said that Steve Nash’s two MVP awards were tainted? Paul Coro and Doug Haller of the ARIZONA REPUBLIC called him on the comment yesterday.

“No, I never said that,” O’Neal said Thursday.
“Did I? If I said that, delete it from the files.”

So now Shaq has a new (easily programmable!) answer… Read more…

Remember our first post yesterday about the weird story of Nevada high school football recruit Kevin Hart? When we suggested (in the headline, no less) that he may have made up the story of how he was scammed?

(What we posted yesterday)

Turns out we were exactly right. Read more…