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Snowing Wallace is one thing, Congress another

Wallace Matthews

January 5, 2008

It's one thing to swear before Mike Wallace, but would Roger Clemens tell the same story if put under oath before a congressional committee?

We soon may get the chance to find out how vehement Clemens' denial of steroid use really is, if he accepts the "invitation" sent to him, Andy Pettitte, Brian McNamee and Kirk Radomski Friday by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to tell his story with his hand on a Bible on Jan. 16.

If there's any, er, juice to what Clemens told "60 Minutes" in the interview to be aired Sunday night, he will jump at the chance. If not, he will find a way to weasel out of it, the way he often has.

Remember when he was held out of the next Subway Series at Shea Stadium after the Piazza bat-flinging fiasco? That wasn't his fault. The Big, Bad Rocket wanted to pitch, but mean old Joe Torre wouldn't let him.

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Same goes, presumably, for talking to George Mitchell. Roger would have loved to clear his name of these scurrilous charges, but Donald Fehr put a gag on him.

Instead, he opted to plead his case to Wallace, who had provided a friendly forum for Clemens to rehabilitate his image in 2001. If he thinks that is going to be enough, and that he can brush back Congress without fear of retaliation the way he has with American League hitters for all these years, he has a rude awakening coming.

For Clemens, the truth has always been a concept as difficult to grasp as a perfect bunt down the third-base line.

And for Wallace, and most TV journalists, truly getting to the truth is as important as finding a Metrocard on the street. He has no real use for either.

When they sat down together at Clemens' Texas ranch last weekend, interviewer and interviewee were seeking the same thing, and it wasn't the truth. It was the sound bite.

For Wallace, it was that little snippet of conversation that pulls in the audience. For Clemens, it was that moment of glibness that plays it for suckers.

So before you bother wasting 12 minutes watching Clemens' appearance on "60 Minutes," understand that Wallace and Clemens found what they were looking for. You and I, however, are still searching.

By now, we all know the sound bite. Lidocaine and B-12. Swear? Swear.

That charade may satisfy Wallace and Clemens. For the gullible, it may pass as an explanation for how a 34-year-old pitcher who had gone 40-39 in his previous four seasons could go 162-73 in the next 11.

But it shouldn't be enough to mollify a congressional committee, provided the congressmen get a chance to ask the questions Wallace will not.

Questions such as: If all you were taking was a topical painkiller and a vitamin generally prescribed to old people for fatigue, why all the secrecy?

Why didn't you mention it two weeks ago in your YouTube video, when you vehemently denied being injected with anything by Brian McNamee?

Now that you've admitted being injected, did you supply the lidocaine and B-12 to McNamee and instruct him to shoot you with it? Or did McNamee come to you and suggest the injections? Are you saying you may have been misinformed about what was really in the needles?

If everything was legit, why were the shots given by a personal trainer and not your personal physician, or the team doctor?

If nothing untoward was going on, why weren't the shots administered in the trainer's room at the ballpark rather than at your apartments in Toronto and New York?

Why did you twice refuse the opportunity to tell your story to Mitchell?

Those are the kinds of questions Clemens should be forced to answer, the kinds of questions that might bring us somewhere nearer the truth of how he turned around his career even more dramatically than did Barry Bonds, the poster boy for baseball's steroid problem.

You won't get them on "60 Minutes," which in its illustrious history has revealed the following sports blockbusters: Derek Jeter loves playing baseball. ("It's a blast!" he gushed to the late Ed Bradley.) Ricky Williams sometimes smokes marijuana. Some NFL players use steroids. Tiger Woods likes to win. Under tough questioning, Tom Brady admitted he hates to lose. And as a young man, Joe Namath enjoyed the company of booze and broads.

For some, Clemens has created the illusion of putting himself in great jeopardy by sitting across from an 89-year-old man who now spends more time in the owner's box at Yankee Stadium than in the newsroom. In truth, he would be in more trouble facing my 7-year-old daughter's tee-ball squad.

Presumably, the congressional committee that forced baseball - and its dishonest and disingenuous commissioner, Bud Selig -- to finally acknowledge that its game is juiced to the gills, would not let Clemens off as easy as that.

And a man as adamantly innocent as Clemens says he is should welcome the opportunity. Now he has the chance. The invitation is in his mailbox. The ball is in his hands. Soon we'll know for sure if Roger Clemens is an honest man or is only playing one on television.