Roger Clemens is set to begin jury selection on Wednesday in his trial in Federal Court in Washington D.C. He is charged with six counts including perjury and obstruction and faces 21 months under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines if convicted. He has vigorously denied ever using any illegal substances.
The two key witnesses against Clemens are his ex-trainer Brian McNamee and former New York Yankees pitching phenom Andy Pettitte.
Brian McNamee has claimed that he injected Clemens with Steroids and Human Growth Hormone (HGH) numerous times from 1998 to 2001. McNamee also provided prosecutors with used syringes and bloodied gauze that he claims he kept for the past 10 years just in case Clemens ever turned on him. He told congressional investigators that he kept the syringes and gauze, “because throughout my time with Roger Clemens … I distrusted him to a degree. I just felt that, if I was going down, I wasn’t going to go down alone because I never felt good about this.”
Andy Pettitte will testify that in 1999 or 2000, he had a conversation with Roger Clemens in which Clemens told him that he had taken human growth hormone. This information was provided in an affidavit that Pettitte prepared for congressional investigators. Clemens has said that Pettitte mis-remembered their conversation and that the actual conversation was about the use of HGH by Clemens’ wife, Debbie.
Clemens has said that the only injections that he ever received from Namee were shots of the pain reliever lidocaine and vitamin B-12. In a deposition before congressional investigators, Clemens stated, “I have never smoked a cigarette, I have never smoked dope, I have never done cocaine. I would not put anything — allow anybody to put anything in my body that’s going to be harmful to me. That’s who I am as a person.”
The trial will undoubtedly affect Clemens’ future baseball legacy including possible entry to the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. Known as “The Rocket”, he finished his amazing 23 year career with 354 wins, an ERA of 3.12 and 4,672 strikeouts. He was also an 11 time All Star selection, 7 time Cy Young award winner and winner of 2 World Series Championships.
