Odds and Sods

Roger Clemens will have his proverbial “day in court,” and it will come before Congress.

The House Oversight Committee has called a hearing to  obtain more information about Major League Baseball’s “Mitchell Report.”  The witnesses called include Brian McNamee, Kirk Radomski, Andy Pettite, Chuck Knoblauch and, yes, Roger Clemens.

Roger stated that he would address the allegations at the appropriate time, and what better time than under oath.

Clemens claims, in an interview with Mike Wallace, that McNamee injected him with lidocaine and vitamin B-12, not steroids and human growth hormone.  McNamee testified for the Mitchell Report that he had injected Clemens with Steroids in 1998, 2000, and 2001 as well as HGH in 2000.

Lidocaine is a local anesthetic, which can be injected.

Vitamin B-12 is commonly used in weight-lifting supplements, as it helps the production of red blood cells.  A deficiency can cause anemia, though as a robust athlete Clemens hardly exhibits the standard profile of a B-12 deficient athlete.

Clemens will not only need to address what he took, but why he chose the method he did.  If he was taking innocuous supplements like Lidocaine and B-12, why did he need his own personal trainer to discreetly inject him?  Why did he feel the need to keep said trainer employed at multiple clubs?

By employing B-12 as an excuse, Clemens immediately engendered comparisons between himself and Rafael Palmerio, who blamed a tainted “B-12 shot” received from teammate Miguel Tejada for his positive steroid test.

It was Palmerio also who sanctimoniously wagged his finger before Congress proclaiming his innocence just months before, irrevocably tarnishing his stellar viagra selling and Bush befriending reputation.  It is this image that should weigh in Roger Clemens’ mind before he begins his testimony.