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Long, misleading Clemens report to bore Congress

Wallace Matthews

January 29, 2008

I think I have finally figured out the strategy being used by Roger Clemens and his alleged advisers in their increasingly silly-slash-desperate attempts to convince the world that the Rocket ran on clean fuel for the past 24 years.

Yesterday, they released something called "An Analysis of the Career of Roger Clemens," and are planning, I believe, to read it aloud - all 18,000 mind-numbing, eye-glazing, reality-distorting words - before Congress when Clemens testifies Feb. 13. Their hope, it appears, is that by droning on through all 45 pages, 38 charts and one "exhibit," apparently compiled to prove that Clemens' subpar 2005 season was the fault of his weak-hitting Astros teammates, they will put Congress, and the rest of the country that still cares enough to watch, into a blissful, unconcerned slumber.

The report had that effect on me yesterday, and I highly recommend it to anyone suffering from a sleep disorder. Unlike the drugs Clemens has admitted to taking, it is available on the Internet without a prescription and is much cheaper and safer than Lunesta or Ambien CR. These statistical comparisons and other arcane items might read like pornography to Bill James and his ilk. To the rest of us, it seems designed to misstate, sedate and obfuscate.

But really, what else does Clemens have left? He's tried the "candor" routine with Mike Wallace, and wound up revealing himself as a liar. (Remember how "Brian McNamee never injected me with anything" morphed into "Brian McNamee never injected me with anything other than Lidocaine and B-12?")

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Clemens has tried the "look at what a good guy I am" routine by playing that taped call to McNamee supposedly made because he was concerned about the health of McNamee's 7-year-old son. But he hardly even asked about the kid. He spent most of his time sounding like what he was, a guy wearing a wire trying to get another guy to spill something. The fact that the other guy was probably wearing a wire, too, made for a rather awkward and unsympathetic conversation.

Then he tried to play the "hit me with your best shot" card by pretending to stand up to reporters' questions. But once the questions got too tough, he had a tantrum and stormed off.

So now his agents get involved, with the data they usually use to "prove" their client is worth more than a team is willing to pay. Only this time, they're trying to prove that Clemens really wasn't all that much better than everyone else. Hence, he must have been playing clean.

Like his previous three attempts at self-acquittal, this one, too, will blow up in Clemens' face. Provided anyone is still awake at the end of the report.

It's bad enough that he uses Curt Schilling, Randy Johnson and Nolan Ryan as examples of pitchers who have been effective past age 40 to prove he is clean, because that asks you to presume that they are, too, or in the case of Ryan, were. But all too often, "clean" means "not yet caught" or "too smart to pay by check" or "not yet on the list of a personal trainer turning state's evidence."

What's worse is Page 42 of the report, featuring a chart of 31 "Hall of Fame pitchers who pitched into their 40s." Not only is the chart wrong - or dishonest - because five pitchers listed - Mordecai Brown, Jim Bunning, Bob Gibson, Walter Johnson and Robin Roberts - never played past 39, but it demonstrates precisely the opposite of what Team Rocket was trying to prove.

Of the 26 who pitched into their 40s, four had more post-40th birthday wins than Clemens' 66. But Phil Niekro and Hoyt Wilhelm were knuckleballers, who presumably can pitch effectively at a far greater age than power pitchers. Of the rest, a group that includes Cy Young, Lefty Grove, Tom Seaver, Steve Carlton, Warren Spahn and Grover Cleveland Alexander, none came close to Clemens' dominance in the four-plus seasons since his 40th birthday, in which he has gone 66-36 with an ERA consistently below the league average.

By contrast, the combined record of the other 40-somethings, minus Niekro and Wilhelm, is 672-646, and the average post-40 record a mediocre 26-25.

Any way you crunch the numbers, Clemens' post-40th birthday career has been remarkable, astounding and unprecedented. And highly suspicious.

We didn't need a statistical analysis to tell us that. But clearly, we will need Congress, or some other disinterested party, to tell us how and why he managed to do it. That is, if they can manage to stay awake.