Clemens defends himself on 60 Minutes

Tonight on 60 Minutes, Roger Clemens defended himself against the steroid accusations levied against him by former trainer Brian McNamee.

Sort of.

The former Red Sox pitcher refused to elaborate or offer any counter-evidence to McNamee’s claims, choosing to counter every accusation with a brief “never” or “never happened.”

He appeared defeated at times, and at one point said, “ I don’t know if I can defend myself. I think people—a lot of people have already made their decisions.”

Wallace then asked him if he would consider taking a lie detector test to help clear his name, but Clemens was noncommittal. “I don’t know if they’re good or bad,” he said.

It’s my understanding that lie detector tests are generally good for people who are telling the truth, and generally bad for people who aren’t. But what do I know.

Clemens suggested that he was being unfairly targeted because of his status as a future hall of famer. He offered an unfortunate analogy, given the bodily location of his alleged steroid injections. “The higher up on the flagpole, the more your butt shows.”

Clemens understandably feels betrayed by McNamee, who emailed Clemens a couple days before the Mitchell Report was released and asked him where to find the fishing poles in Cabo, but made no mention of the accusations he’d made against him.

“I’m so upset about it,” Clemens said, when asked whether he felt betrayed by McNamee. “How i treated this man and took care of him.

“I treated him fairly. I treated him great as anybody else. I helped him out.”

Wallace did not go as easy on Clemens as many had expected, given their personal relationship over the years.  In one of the most revealing series of exchanges, he asked Clemens what McNamee could gain by lying when he had so much incentive to tell the truth.

“Evidently not going to jail.”

“For what?”

Clemens froze for a minute and then sheepishly said, “Well I think he’s been moving and buying steroids.”

The highlight of the interview was what may have been Clemens’ final public roid rage.

Agitated with the way the public and the press have rushed to judgement in this case, Clemens became agitated, shouting, “Twenty-four, twenty-five years, Mike. You’d think I’d get an inch of respect. An inch.”

Then he threw a splintered bat at Wallace.

Ok, not really. But it would have been funny if he did.

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