Overtime | New year, same steroid story

Kyle Nelson Columnist

It’s a new year, but the same old story. The writer’s strike is over, but the script is the still the same. Ladies and gentleman, I’d like to wish you a merry 2008, which to all of you baseball fans might come to be known as “Steroidgate.”

You’d think baseball players would learn at least one thing: Don’t use steroids. Or, if you are going to use steroids, don’t get caught. That being said, I think baseball players should learn another thing, something that most are taught at an extremely young age: Don’t lie. There is yet another message to be learned as well, one that most generally learn around the time they first learn United States history: Don’t lie under oath.

When I said that the script is the same, I was not lying. Roger Clemens, known to most as the “Rocket,” joins an ever-growing pool of Major League Baseball’s (MLB) finest, including, but not limited to: Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Jose Canseco, Andy Pettitte and Rafael Palmeiro.

Though he claims to have taken only vitamin B-12 and a surface anesthetic on his rear end, there are serious allegations currently being pursued by Congress that Clemens was actually injected with Human Growth Hormone. Clemens’s former personal trainer, Brian McNamee, has backed up these allegations, producing bandages and syringes containing traces of Clemens’ DNA.

Despite the relatively disturbing connotations of McNamee’s collection of dirty bandages and syringes, this evidence was enough to inspire Clemens to testify in front of Congress on his own behalf.

The testimony itself was an example of everything good and horrible about our current government. Watching Congress members mudsling with the arrogant Clemens and the flat-out strange McNamee was a sight to see.

But while watching, the question that I had was: Doesn’t Congress have anything better to do? Calling Representative Henry Waxman? Representative Tom Davis? George Mitchell? Heck, while we’re on a roll call, how about Spygate’s Senator Arlen Specter?

How about spending some time thinking about a withdrawal strategy for Iraq, raising the minimum wage, or working on righting some of the many social wrongs that have occurred in the last eight years?

Needless to say, anybody following this situation could guess how the hearing would take place: McNamee would accuse, Clemens would arrogantly deny. See? The script is still the same.

However, what Clemens could not have prepared for is the fact that he was among a very hostile crowd. Evidently this is what our lawmakers care about, and Clemens might have underestimated the degree to which he was pushed about his participation. It certainly looked like he felt invisible during the proceedings. Judging by his swiss-cheese defense, his arrogance wasn’t there afterward.

It will be interesting to see where Congress falls on the issue this time around. They took the hard line with Bonds, and it looked to be a repeat of Jack Johnson’s very public ostrification, but how will they deal with the same issue pertaining to a white, conservative baseball legend? After all, perjury and lying under oath are crimes no matter who’s committing them.

In my opinion, the sport of baseball needs Clemens to take a fall. A conviction would prove that the cream of the MLB crop are susceptible to the steroid ban as baseball’s underlings; it will establish a zero-tolerance policy.

However, I think that for the sake of the League, Commissioner Bud Selig’s job, and countless impressionable youth all around the country who enjoy playing and watching the game, some sort of legal legitimacy must be established.

Baseball’s time has come to either clean up, or clean out. For baseball’s sake, however, justice must be served, and a new and better system must be established if the Major League Baseball wishes to continue its tradition as America’s pastime.

—Kyle Nelson ’09 is an English and Africana Studies double-major. This semester he is editorializing on issues in national athletics.