Truth-seeking? You're kidding

Rewind 2008 Baltimore Sun reporters share their most memorable moments of the past year

It has been so long, I almost "misremembered" my trip to Washington for the Feb. 13 hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. That was the one at which tarnished idol Roger Clemens traded charges with former personal trainer Brian McNamee and shattered whatever illusions we had left about the national pastime.

The Rocket was dragged before Congress and spent about five hours alternately dissembling and declaring his righteous outrage at the claims by McNamee that he (Clemens) had used illegal performance-enhancing drugs to help him pitch into his 40s and cement the credentials that - until these tawdry revelations - made him a seeming lock to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Much of that day is hazy now, but the thing that sticks out in my memory was the feeling deep in my gut that it was futile to try to figure out whether Clemens or McNamee was lying. So I wrote a column blasting everyone involved - including the legislators who spent the day preening for the cameras and picking sides along party lines - for turning this supposed search for truth into a travesty.