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Andy Pettitte did exactly what I’d hoped for (but was never dumb enough to expect) on Monday when he faced a group of reporters for a press conference to address his use of HGH, his relationship with Roger Clemens, and other aspects of his life post-Mitchell Report. It was a compelling event, unlike anything I’ve seen from a professional baseball player before, and it provided a catharsis of sorts to those of us willing to face the mistakes of our ballplayer heroes.

I’ll admit that before the onset of the Performance Enhancing Drugs melodrama in baseball I was never much of a Pettitte fan. This is not to say I didn’t respect him. His fierce competitive spirit is unmistakable; one look at the intensity of his eyes when he’s on the mound is enough to convince anyone. Mostly it was his presence on the World Series-winning ’96 and ’99 Yankees that irked me—my Braves being on the losing end of both contests.

Yet his frank admissions on Monday really won me over. I can’t tell for certain if he was being entirely honest, but it sure felt like he was. I felt none of the distrust from the week before when I watched Roger Clemens’ angry, evasive display. Here was a contrite man bearing his soul as best he could, trying to answer questions that have no good answers.

ESPN.com’s Jason Stark wrote a column about his impressions of the conference in which he largely agrees that Pettitte did a convincing job and praises him accordingly but also acknowledges the risks that such direct admission carries:

“[I]n doing it this way, Pettitte drew a road map for all the drug culprits of tomorrow to follow. This is how it’s done. Unfortunately for him, unfortunately for all of them, the truth won’t set them free. But it sure beats the alternative.”

Stark is referring to the questions and the scrutiny that will continue into the indeterminate future for everyone, in particular Pettitte, tainted by this scandal. This is an unfortunate truth, and one I can’t help but confirm with my next paragraph.

There was a time during the press conference when I had trouble following Pettitte’s account. This was when he claimed not to consider himself a cheater. His interpretation of his drug use is novel. His position was something like the following: since he was using HGH while injured and only seeking to hasten his recovery, the use didn’t constitute cheating. In other words, he wasn’t trying to gain an unfair advantage on the field. He just wanted to reduce the amount of time it would take to return his body to normal. But in baseball, as in all other sports, we don’t make allowances for injured players. If you’re on the field you have to compete against others in whatever state you are in. The pitcher isn’t going to throw the ball more slowly to a batter nursing a strained oblique. The batter isn’t going to refrain from driving the ball to left just because the fielder there hasn’t recovered fully from a pulled hamstring. Part of having an even playing field is accepting injuries for what they are: limitations as to what can be done. Any unfair advantage you gain when recovering from an injury is cheating in the same way that using drugs to gain a few MPH on your fastball is.

I’m glad Pettitte could admit what he did. I thank him again for his candor and hope his press conference sets a good example for those players whose drug use will be substance of future scandals. But I would still like him to admit that he cheated.

Now that I’ve had time to digest the drama from last Wednesday with all its attendant accusations and speechifying, I’ll join the chorus of amateur interpreters to tell you what I saw when Clemens and McNamee took the stand.

The thing that stood out to me was what Clemens said when he denied using performance-enhancing drugs. Each time he denied using chemical supplements, he accompanied his assertion with a reminder of just how hard he has had to work. Under any circumstances, the inability to answer a direct question with a direct, to-the-point response looks bad. When it’s before a Congressional committee and in front of the country, it can wound your image very deeply.

But that’s not what worries me the most. It’s Clemens’ obsession with his own work ethic that strikes me as odd. Why keep insisting on his commitment to athletic training? How is that germane? Did I miss it when some congressman asked Clemens for workout tips?

It seems Clemens thinks the accusations against him are broader than they are. Last time I checked he was merely suspected of taking steroids and HGH on 16 specific occasions. It’s as if he interprets the Congressional inquiries as suggesting he had no hand in his own achievements—that he is merely the conduit through which steroids and HGH have compiled hall-of-fame credentials.

No one makes it to the major leagues, much less wins a Cy Young award, without a work ethic of the first rank. Anyone who contends otherwise has either never picked up a glove or is in the throes of a fantastic delusion.

Roger, we all know you’ve worked extraordinarily hard. What America wants to know, plain and simple, is did Brian McNamee inject you with steroids and HGH? Until you can pick that question out from these imagined attacks on your work ethic, I’ll find your denials unconvincing.

See Roger Clemens deny the accusations against him in his opening statement and then later in the proceedings.

The much-discussed Mitchell Report has been vindicated once again.  This time Paul LoDuca has issued a statement acknowledging the mistakes he has made in taking HGH in the past.  I never thought as many athletes would own up to their indiscretions as have already done so in the wake of the report. This is doubly the case because the document is based largely on the accusations of a few drug dealers. But I’m very pleased to be hearing these admissions of guilt.

I feel terrible about the damage these revelations will have on the reputations of the guilty.  I’m not thirsting for the downfall of public figures and heroes.  But cleaning up the game of baseball requires an airing of the secrets from the performance-enhanced era, or an uncovering of as many of the secrets as we can.
So I thank LoDuca for having the bravery and the integrity to admit to his mistakes.

And I have a hard time following Al Sharpton’s accusation that black athletes are receiving tougher treatment in the wake of steroid- and HGH-related scandals.  It seems that in the past few weeks the ballplayers most scrutinized and damaged by the Mitchell Report are Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, and Chuck Knoblauch—all of which are white.   LoDuca is also Caucasian.

It’s true that Barry Bonds has been indicted, and Clemens has not. But give him a few weeks.  After that unimpressive performance before Congress, Roger better ready his defense.

The baseball melodrama on Capitol Hill has taken another shocking turn. According to a report from Newsday, Andy Pettitte’s affidavit from last week contains information that supports Brian McNamee’s version of events. More specifically, Pettitte admits having had a conversation nearly ten years ago with the Rocket about HGH use, according to the AP.

How will this evidence affect the hearing scheduled for later this morning? That is unclear, but it remains unlikely that Clemens will recant and beg for the committee’s forgiveness. In fact Pettitte’s own testimony provides a clue to how the supposed HGH conversation will be handled. When Pettitte talked to Clemens in 2005 about that earlier conversation, Clemens told his friend he was mistaken. It was Roger’s contention that they had not spoken about HGH at all and that Pettitte had misunderstood.

The likelihood of misunderstanding a conversation about illegal drug use seems pretty low to me. This is doubly the case when it led in no small part to your own decision to begin illegal chemical supplementation—and in so doing accepting the attendant professional and health-related risks. But human memories are notoriously imperfect instruments, and there is plenty of room for Clemens to exploit this fact. He’ll continue to allege that Pettitte misremembered or misinterpreted the conversation at issue.

Legal maneuvers aside, the situation is looking fairly bleak for Clemens. Pettitte and Knoblauch appear to have substantiated most of what McNamee has said about them and in so doing made Clemens’ former trainer appear much more trustworthy. Perjury charges might be just around the corner for whomever the committee doesn’t believe today. Clemens could use someone else to substantiate his story. And I’m talking about somebody other than Jose Canseco. (They might as well have asked me if I had ever witnessed Clemens taking steroids or HGH.)

My advice to Roger before he testifies today is: remember Marion Jones and Martha Stewart. If he did the crime, the cover-up will be what hurts the most. Although right now the defection of his old friend Pettitte may sting more.

When the Mitchell Report first emerged on Dec. 13, the allegations against Roger Clemens were startling.  Media attention focused on when and how he would counter the findings of the report.  It took weeks before Clemens mounted a reasonable defense.  Statements through his agent and attorney were deemed impersonal and unconvincing.  An uncomfortable-looking Clemens posted a video on YouTube ten days after the report surfaced in which he told the viewers:

“It’s amazing to me that…I’m going to go to the lengths that I’m going to go in to have to defend myself, to do this.”

These were not the kind of words that inspire the confidence of the American people.  He should have been defending himself not airing his disbelief at having to defend himself.
 

An interview on 60 Minutes on Jan. 6, three weeks after the release of the report, also did little to quell the concerns about the legitimacy of his accomplishments.
 

Why would his response to this crisis have been so slow, insubstantial, and misguided?  To understand that, you must understand a bit about Clemens’ history.
 

Roger Clemens has never let anyone else’s opinion of his ability hamper him.  He has always found his own path and decided along the way what was and was not possible.  Many times he has performed best after being underestimated or criticized by others.

He famously scorned a 12th round selection in the 1981 draft by heading to the University of Texas where he made two All-America teams and won the College World Series in 1983.  His draft stock much improved, Clemens was selected in the first round with the 19th overall selection that year and made a swift rise to the Major League.
 

Clemens left the Boston Red Sox following the 1996 season after an excellent early career there.  Announcing the failed negotiations to keep the hurler, then-Red Sox GM Dan Duquette infamously pronounced that Clemens was in “the twilight of his career.”  Clemens went on to win the Cy Young Award—given to the best pitcher in each league—in both of the next two seasons for the Toronto Blue Jays.
 

Then at the age of 43, when most pitchers are content to watch their sons play high school ball, he had his finest full-season ERA, a mind-bogglingly miniscule 1.87.  He had proved that no one’s appraisals of his talent were accurate; he was sui generis.
 

Now in the intense gaze of the Mitchell Report investigation, people’s opinions of The Rocket have begun to matter like never before.  He can no longer employ his old tactics of ignoring what has been said about him and proving his worth on the field.  Any new superhuman season on the mound would only be added to the evidence against him.  He has to learn to excel in the world of public relations.  This is what me missed initially.
 

And that is why he is now making the rounds in Congress, trying to glad-hand those people who will decide his fate in front of the eyes of the nation.  This is a smart move by Clemens’ people.  I just hope it isn’t too little too late.

P.S. Those Clemens people keep making mistakes.  The flawed and unconvincing statistical report they compiled to support their client has been criticized by a group of business professors.  They should learn that the stunts they use to influence public opinion should be meaningful.  In case they haven’t noticed, Congress is involved and people are taking this situation seriously.