WASHINGTON -- Before a packed congressional hearing room, Roger Clemens, one of the best pitchers in baseball history, fought to save his reputation yesterday as he angrily denied using steroids.
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform heard nearly five hours of testimony about - and from - Clemens during a stormy hearing that ended with committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman slamming his gavel and ordering the pitcher not to interrupt his closing statements.
Several times, Waxman had to remind Clemens' lawyers that only their client could speak, not them.
Perhaps the most damaging evidence against Clemens came from a fellow pitcher and trusted friend, former New York Yankees teammate Andy Pettitte.
The Clemens case featured two people with divergent stories and lawmakers lining up behind the one they believed was telling the truth.
Waxman, a California Democrat, and Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, the panel's ranking Republican, must now decide whether to recommend that the Justice Department open an investigation to untangle a web of conflicting stories to determine if Clemens or his former personal trainer, Brian McNamee, was lying. "This [committee] is not a court of law," Davis said. But he added: "Both can't be telling the truth."
The Justice Department, which had representatives at the hearing, could choose to investigate the matter even if the committee does not formally refer the case to it. Among those monitoring the hearing was Jeff Novitsky, the former college basketball player who has led the federal investigation of BALCO, a now-defunct lab in Northern California that sold steroids to high-profile athletes.
Clemens, wearing a dark pinstriped suit, often seemed indignant about having to defend himself against allegations made in the Mitchell Report on steroid use in major league baseball - that he was repeatedly injected with illegal performance-enhancing drugs by McNamee, his principal accuser.
A seven-time winner of the Cy Young Award as his league's best pitcher, Clemens, 45, was seated at one end of the oval witness table and didn't look up when McNamee was escorted to his seat at the other end. He continued to look down when McNamee called Clemens "one of the greatest pitchers in the history of baseball" and when McNamee said, "I injected him on numerous occasions with steroids and human growth hormone."
