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Pettitte's presence weighs heavily at deposition

BY JIM BAUMBACH | jim.baumbach@newsday.com

11:45 PM EST, February 13, 2008

WASHINGTON - Andy Pettitte's deposition, when unveiled during Wednesday's hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, revealed three major performance-enhancing-drug stunners.

Roger Clemens told his Yankee teammate in 1999 or 2000 that he used human growth hormone.

Brian McNamee told him in 2003 or 2004 that he injected Clemens with steroids.

Pettitte also revealed that he injected himself with HGH one day in 2004. He already had confirmed McNamee's account that the trainer injected Pettitte with HGH twice in 2002.

Excused just two days ago from testifying at this hearing, Pettitte's presence was felt more than any other person in the room not named McNamee or Clemens. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) went right after Clemens at the start of the questioning, and Cummings wondered what every Yankee fan surely was thinking.

What does The Rocket think of his friend and workout partner's accusation that Clemens told him he used HGH?

In response, Clemens did not attack Pettitte, instead insisting he must have been thinking about a conversation Clemens believed they had about a television show in which an elderly man with limited use of his body took HGH and then returned to the golf course.

In general, "I believe Andy to be a very honest fellow, yes," Clemens said, even if he disputes him on this very important point.

And it might be difficult to question Pettitte's honesty when he offered to the committee investigators that he not only took HGH in 2002, as McNamee stated in the Mitchell Report, but he also took HGH in 2004.

Pettitte said in his deposition that he knew his father had used HGH for his myriad health problems and asked him if he could have some for his elbow.

"I had asked my dad if he had had any of the HGH that he had had before," Pettitte testified. "He ended up bringing me two syringes over to my house. And you know, I injected myself once in the morning and once at night. He had brought two syringes over. That's what he brought over to my house . . . I did it for that day. And to this day, I don't know why. It doesn't make a whole lot -- heck of a lot of sense. I know -- I think that's probably why I didn't continue to pursue it.

"I did it. I was desperate and you know I really knew that it wasn't going to help me. My flexor tendon was already torn. I knew I needed surgery. I would just say just out of desperation I tried to do it again. But that was the extent of it."

Pettitte said his father just recently told him he received the HGH from a trainer at his local gym in the Houston area.

With regard to Clemens, Pettitte testified about a conversation in 1999 or 2000. There was no doubt in his mind Clemens told him then he used HGH.

"It was just a normal conversation," Pettitte said.

But it was abnormal enough that Pettitte remembered it five or six years later, at the time of the congressional hearings involving Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and other star baseball players. Pettitte testified that he was prepared to admit his HGH use if a reporter asked him about it, and he approached Clemens and asked him how he would handle that kind of question.

"I got Roger and just asked him, I said, 'Dude, what are you going to say if anyone -- if any of the reporters ask you if you had ever used HGH?"' Pettitte said. "And he said, you know, he said, 'Well, what are you talking about?' And I said, 'Well, you had told me you had used HGH.' And he said, 'I never told you that.' And I said, 'You didn't?' And he said, 'No. I told you that Debbie used HGH.' And that's -- that was the end of the conversation right there."

Pettitte said he did not push the point with Clemens because "I wasn't going to argue with him over it."

Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) pointed out that Clemens, in his own deposition, stated his wife, Debbie, took HGH in 2003, meaning there's no way he could have told Pettitte about that in 1999 or 2000.

When asked by the committee about Pettitte's recollection, Clemens said, "I think he misremembers our conversation."

Pettitte testified that he never told Clemens he used HGH; the only person he told was his wife, Laura. He also told her about the conversations with Clemens about Clemens' HGH use, and Laura provided an affidavit to Congress confirming that.

Pettitte also testified that in 2003 or 2004, while working out with McNamee at his Deer Park home, McNamee told him about injecting Clemens with steroids.

"I just remember that Mac was upset and he was venting and he was -- you know, he was telling me that -- that, you know, that Roger, you know, had done steroids," Pettitte said. He said it surprised him because he knew only about HGH.

"That was the first I'd ever heard him say anything about steroids," Pettitte said. "So I just kind of, you know, just kind of let it go in one ear and out the other ear, basically."