The reaction to Roger Clemens’ interview on 60 Minutes last night has sort of taken on a Rorschach test quality.  Most people seem to have gotten out of it what they wanted to get out of it.  If you believe that Clemens didn’t use steroids, I guess last night strengthened your belief in his innocence.  If you believe that he did use, you definitely didn’t see anything that changed your mind (quick, guess which side I fall on).

This is just one man’s opinion, but here are my day-after observations on the interview, as well as the related developments over the past two days.

·         Mike Wallace didn’t bother to ask Clemens why he didn’t immediately respond to the Mitchell report when it was released, why the first statement came from his lawyer and not him, and why his first response came in the form of a YouTube-ish video.  Taken on their face, these actions don’t give you the sense that he’s interested in immediately clearing his name in the public eye.  Speaking of Wallace…

·         60 Minutes has eight reporters currently working for them.  Why did they feel the need to bring the near 90-year old Wallace out of retirement for this interview?  Could it be because he interviewed Clemens for a piece in 2001 that painted him in a very favorable light?  Maybe Clemens insisted that he would only do the interview with Wallace because that’s the only interviewer he felt comfortable with?

·         Just from watching Clemens closely, he looked incredibly uncomfortable; his body language didn’t project a heck of a lot of confidence.  The weirdest moment to me was when Wallace asked him if his personal trainer, Brian McNamee, had injected him with anything before, and his eyes just lit up like a schoolboy saying “Wait, I know the answer to that one, I studied it last night!” 

·         It also bears mentioning that Clemens’ (or his lawyer’s) initial statement denied receiving any sort of injections from McNamee.  But then the story changed and it became lidocaine and B-12.  Uh huh.  This is starting to sound similar to the Sheffield defense of “I didn’t know what I was using”.  Speaking of lidocaine…

·         I’ve received a lidocaine injection before a knee surgery.  You don’t mess around with that stuff.  Only a licensed anesthesiologist should be injecting that stuff into anyone, it has to be done a certain way.  I find it hard to believe that someone with a degree in athletic training/sports sciences is qualified to be administering that sort of injection.  As for the B-12, yes, anyone could administer that, so why couldn’t the Yankees’ training staff do that, rather than McNamee?

·         McNamee says that he injected Clemens in 1998 and 2001.  Clemens’ response is that he won the Cy Young Award in 1997 and 2004.  Certainly he could have started using in 1998, but the 2004 point is a fair call.  Also a fair call (though less plausible) is that Clemens had no knowledge of what Andy Pettitte received from McNamee.  Still unanswered is why McNamee would be telling the truth about Pettitte and lying about Clemens.

·         Unasked by Wallace is why Clemens stated his faith in McNamee as a person as recently as 14 months ago, but now that he’s laid out these accusations, Clemens suddenly questions his character (to be fair, McNamee seems to be a pretty bad guy overall, but that didn’t seem to bother Clemens until now).

·         Clemens filed a defamation of character lawsuit against McNamee this morning.  Well clearly he’s tired of being the punching bag and he’s ready to take down anyone that tries to sully his good name, right?  Don’t be so sure yet.  Clemens has been invited to testify in front of Congress on January 16^th.  He’s been unclear on whether he’ll testify or not.  However, if there’s a pending legal case (such as…say…a defamation of character lawsuit), he can turn down the invite or refuse to answer certain questions by saying that he can’t comment on anything related to the lawsuit.  Wouldn’t you think that a person wanting to clear his good name would welcome the chance to state his case before Congress?  Couldn’t the filing of the suit waited ten more days?  Did he have to do it right now?  He may surprise us and end up testifying, but these actions are borderline baffling.

      No point on its own confirms Clemens’ guilt or innocence.  As a whole, however, these paint a picture of someone who doesn’t really seem either too confident in or too interested in defending himself.  That may work in a criminal court, but in the court of public opinion, that’s not going to get him too far.

UPDATE: Looks like Clemens will testify in front of Congress after all.  Still very interested to see how many questions he does have to pass on.