By A.J. Hayes
Host Allen Ludden and regular panelist Larry Hovis, of Hogan Heroes fame, may have passed on ages ago, but look for the Liar’s Club
to make a big return to television on Wednesday.
This time the star will be none other than ace pitcher Roger Clemens, and his audience will be members of Congress and baseball fans desperately seeking closure to the steroids era.
Like a Clemens strikeout pitch, expect the untruthfulness to come fast and furious.
Despite being sworn to tell the truth, Clemens will do anything to get around the accusations that he used performance-enhancing drugs to take his baseball career to a higher level at an age when pitchers have traditionally moved to mop-up roles.
This past week, Clemens, wearing a hawkish crew cut and a suit cut two sizes too small - apparently to emphasize that he’s a massive man even in retirement - canvassed the halls of congress glad handing anyone in sight and looking not unlike a plumped Ballpark Frank.
The targets of his affection were none other than members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform - the same people who will try to wriggle the truth out of the Rocket and his chief accuser, former trainer Brian McNamee.
That’s like E. Howard Hunt and H.R. Haldeman playing Scrabble with members of the Watergate Committee prior to testifying.
From the reaction of some of politicians Clemens met with last week, it looks as if his schmoozefest worked, despite the wheel barrow of evidence, both circumstantial and physical tying the six time Cy Young Award winner to Human Growth Hormone.
The scary part is that he just might get away with it. Edolphus Towns, one of the congressmen Clemens sidled up to, seemed to buy Clemens spiel.
Towns, a Democrat from Brooklyn, found it hard to believe McNamee’s assertion that he held on to medical waste linking Clemens to HGH.
“Doesn’t that seem a little strange?” Towns said. “This is a really weird one. This one is interesting, man. I have been in this business for a long time.”
When word was leaked that Jeff Novitzky, the IRS agent leading the sports steroids investigations, was planning to be in the audience on Wednesday, Hardin warned. “I can tell you this: if he ever messes with Roger, Roger will eat his lunch.”
Eat his lunch? The way the suddenly affable Clemens acted last week, you think he’d be more likely to take Novitzky to lunch and sign a baseball for his grandkids.
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