Here is Roger Clemens, the greatest pitcher of his generation, fresh from getting fingerprinted and taking a mug shot on Monday at his arraignment at a federal courthouse in Washington D.C., and there isn't a doubt that he is a Hall of Famer ...
When it comes to lying.
Clearly and dramatically, the guy told a slew of whoppers two years ago when he swore before a bunch of U.S. congressmen on Capitol Hill that he never used performance-enhancing drugs. He did so with the grace of one of those old Soviet Union thugs. This was before, during and after he spent time hurling folks under Washington's Metro subway cars, and those folks ranged from his former trainer to his former best friend to his former best friend's wife to his former nanny.
Well, here's the scary thing: There isn't a doubt that Clemens believes what he keeps saying. He believes he never used steroids, and he believes anybody who states otherwise is the true liar.
So, inside that courtroom just a few blocks from where Clemens irritated congressmen with his defiance, it was more of the same when witnesses said he stood before the judge at the appointed time and proclaimed boldly, "Not guilty, your honor."
In other words, Clemens is clowning the feds.
Not good. Not that Clemens cares, because in his mind, he isn't guilty of three counts of making false statements, two counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of Congress. He also doesn't care that the conviction rate of the feds is nearly 100 percent.
To hear Clemens tell it through Twitter after his indictment earlier this month, he'll be just fine after he does what Al Capone, Michael Vick and others couldn't do -- beat the feds. Wrote Clemens on Twitter, "I look forward to challenging the Governments (sic) accusations, and hope people will keep an open mind until trial. I appreciate all the support I have been getting. I am happy to finally have my day in court."
That court date is slated for April, which means Clemens will have several months to convince himself even more that up is down, water isn't wet and he's never seen a syringe.
This isn't one of those Marion Jones things. She willingly played the role of the persecuted so well that she was challenging for an Oscar and an Emmy in multiple years. That's because she admitted that she knew she was lying when she angrily insisted before two grand juries that she didn't use steroids to make her swift legs even faster along the way to five gold medals during the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.
In a strange way, Clemens is -- well, sincere. You can see it in his face, and you can hear it in his voice.
Clemens has convinced himself that he spent those 23 seasons winning 354 games and collecting 4,672 strikeouts by doing nothing more than eating all of his Wheaties. Clemens has convinced himself that Brian McNamee, his former trainer, is full of resin bags when McNamee says he actually saved syringes and other medical paraphernalia from many of the times he says he injected Clemens with steroids.
Not only that, Clemens has convinced himself that Andy Pettitte, his former best friend, "misheard" or "misremembered" when Pettitte informed congressional investigators that Clemens told him he was using HGH. And Clemens has convinced himself that, even though Pettitte's wife said she was informed of Clemens' use of performance-enhancing drugs by Pettitte, Clemens is convinced that Pettitte's wife was distracted by watching Oprah or something at the time.
Clemens also has convinced himself that his former nanny was hallucinating or maybe having eye problems when she sided with McNamee instead of Clemens by telling the feds that Clemens really was at an event hosted by steroid king Jose Canseco.
The guy could pass a lie detector test. So could Pete Rose during that stretch of years when he claimed he never bet on baseball. And you could include the likes of Richard Nixon, who went to his grave contending that he never knew about the Watergate break-in or coverup, even though all of the evidence and testimonies say otherwise.
The guy could pass a lie-detector test. So could Pete Rose during that stretch of years when he claimed he never bet on baseball.
Which brings us to a conversation I had last year with Dr. Patrick Devine, my favorite sports psychologist, who has spent the last three decades as an accomplished professor in the psychology department at Kennesaw State University in Georgia.
Said Devine, "Could some of these guys have gotten to the stage where they've blocked things out of their minds, and now they believe that they didn't do them? Well, Sigmund Freud would say, yes, you can repress those thoughts. The seasoned guys, such as a Roger Clemens and others, yeah, they've trained themselves to block out the negative and to emphasize the positive in all situations.
"You walk a guy, and then you have to look at the next batter as if this is going to be a strikeout. When you can push things out of your mind to this extent, it puts you more into the possibility of saying, 'Well, what I did was really OK.' In the case of performance-enhancing drug use, for instance, it starts to become like, 'Well, everybody else is doing it.'
"So, at the end of the day, it makes it easier to deny usage over time, especially if you get caught."
Exhibit A: The Rocket. Or shall I say The Designated Victim -- you know, in Clemens' mind?
