Baseball Steroid Thread

[Chalupa]

Jayson Stark is blogging live from the hearings....

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?...sional_hearings

[Dan Gould]

Surely not the first or last such statement, but this comment is especially stupid:

11:29 a.m.: In her questions for Mitchell, Betty McCollum of Minnesota flat-out said baseball has defrauded the American public.

"We're here in the middle of a criminal conspiracy that defrauded millions of people," McCollum said. "Major League Baseball is sold as legitimate in which the outcome of the game is legitimate. ... This demonstrates fraud to me. Every fan that has bought a ticket has been subjected to a fraud. ... Major League Baseball is filled with lawbreakers and co-conspirators."

[vajerzy]

The short time I listened to it- someone referred to the "post-sessions" (post season), 1919 Black Hawks (Black Sox) and they got Palmiero's name wrong.

What a joke......Congress should have done their homework. Half of them didn't know crap about baseball- there should have been a quiz before you were allowed to ask questions to Fehr and Selig.

[Dan Gould]

Two pieces of bad news for Roger the Dodger in today's papers.

Number one would be this Newday column which states

1) Pettitte isn't happy with Clemens' approach to the situation, and particularly his airing of the taped phone call

2) Pettitte and Clemens aren't really as close as people say

The obvious implication being that Clemens may not get much support from Pettitte when it comes to testimony that is under oath and subject to prosecution for perjury.

Number two, and in my opinion potentially catastrophic to Clemens in terms of the risk of making false assertions under oath; his libel suit and his public image is this article in the Daily News. It reports that in 2003-04, McNamee was concerned about Clemens testing positive during the "survey" steroid testing MLB and the Player's Union had started. He contacted Clemens' scumbag agents, and had a lengthy conversation with one of their employees. The employee, Jim Murray, took "copious" notes.

The News gives an extensive quote from the transcript of the phone call:

In the tape, Clemens is heard appearing to tell McNamee that he had asked him several months ago whether he knew Kirk Radomski, the former Mets clubhouse attendant who distributed steroids to players and others in baseball and was a primary source of information in the Mitchell Report, and that McNamee had said "no."

According to a transcript of the tape, which Clemens released publicly, McNamee is heard saying, "I did speak ... I told your guys, man. I told Murray. I told him his name ... I told Murray."

"I asked you point blank," Clemens responds, "I said you know this cat is when we were working (beeped out) you told me 'no."

McNamee then goes on to say, "I told Jim Murray. I told Jim Murray. I told him. I told him. I sat down with him in Starbucks on the corner where you used to live, and I told him the guy's name."

According to Ward, the trainer definitely was referring to the 2003 or 2004 meeting in the exchange, in which he says he was asked by Murray who he had gotten steroids and HGH from. McNamee told Murray that he was getting steroids from "someone named Kirk. It was a lengthy meeting and Murray took all kinds of notes."

We're really back to the "fixin' to bury me" thing - Clemens isn't saying "why did you lie?" He's saying "why did you spill the beans on me?" And if Clemens was pure as the driven snow, why is he asking about connections to Radomski? There's no logical reason to be concerned about a connection to a steroid distributor unless you were using the stuff and were afraid that it was going to come out.

The NY Times has its own report and unlike the News, they got a response from the scumbag agents and attorney:

In the taped conversation, Clemens appears to indicate some concern about Radomski. “I don’t know how many months ago it was, I asked you, you know, I didn’t know who this cat was in the New York Mets — this guy,” Clemens said.

McNamee replied: “I told your guys, man. I told Murray, I told him his name. I told Murray.”

Clemens said: “I asked you point blank. I said, Do you know who this cat is when we were working? I said there’s some rumblings about some guys with the Mets. Do you know who this guy is? You told me no.”

What may be the more significant reference to Murray comes moments later, when McNamee recalls that he met with Murray.

“I met with Jimmy in ’04, and I told him. I said Jimmy, I just wanted to give you guys a heads-up because you better have some information. I’d rather you be prepared than unprepared,” McNamee said.

McNamee’s lawyers, in response to questions about the tape, said McNamee had met with Murray because he feared Clemens would fail a drug test.

Earl Ward, McNamee’s lead lawyer, said that although McNamee was no longer injecting Clemens, he was concerned that Clemens was still using performance-enhancing substances.

“He did speak to Murray about his suspicions, his concerns that Major League Baseball had implemented testing and that Roger could have a problem,” Ward said in a telephone interview after speaking with McNamee on Friday night.

McNamee did not talk with Clemens directly about steroids or the testing program in 2004, although he was still training with Clemens at the time, Ward added.

Clemens, who played for the Yankees from 1999 to 2003, was with the Houston Astros in 2004 and working less frequently with McNamee, who lived in Queens at the time.

Hardin said Friday that Clemens was never told by anyone from the Hendricks agency about any conversation with McNamee in 2004 expressing concern about steroid tests and that the Hendricks agency adamantly denied that Murray or either Hendricks brother ever received such a message from McNamee.

“McNamee never told Jimmy that Roger or Andy were in any way connected to steroids or human growth hormone," Hardin said in reference to Clemens and Andy Pettitte, who is also represented by the Hendricks agency and who, in 2004, was a Houston teammate of Clemens’s.

Daniel C. Richman, a professor at Columbia Law School and a former federal prosecutor, said if Murray ever did corroborate McNamee’s version of a 2004 conversation between them, it would bolster McNamee’s credibility because it would prove a “prior consistent statement.”

“It would show the committee that McNamee wasn’t just making stuff up now,” Richman said. “But if Murray says he doesn’t remember the meeting, it will just be another he said, he said.”

Of course Clemens' scumbag attorney and agent are going to deny, deny, deny - but does this person want to risk jail by lying about such a conversation? Do you think that the Hendricks brothers are about to make this guy a partner in the agency, or give him one huge "bonus"?

Looks to me like the most critical question now is whether this Murray person is a Greg Anderson type or a Paul McNamee type. Roger Clemens place in baseball history may depend on the answer to that question.

And that comment - I asked you, I don't know how many months ago - why is Clemens asking about a connection to the Mets clubhouse guy if he's clean? Why is he worried what McNamee might say? Why is he asking these questions, why is he hiring attorneys and sending PIs to interview his trainer?

The more you think about this, the worse and worse it looks for Clemens. We can only hope that both the Feds and the Committee Staff are gong to subpoena this guy and interview him. If he doesn't adopt the company line, Clemens would be insane to testify before Congress.

[T.D.]

Dan, I have no love lost for "Team Clemens", but your repeated use of "scumbag" is not giving an impression of objectivity, and will probably get jumped on. I can perhaps see it applied to Clemens's agents (though I wouldn't do so, absent overwhelming evidence to the contrary; in fact, they seem to have done a good job of maximizing Roger's earnings), but the attorney? I mean, the whole business of defense lawyer potentially has a patina of sleaze (e.g., what do you do if asked to defend a dude you think is guilty? Turn down the money? Right)...

[Dan Gould]

Dan, I have no love lost for "Team Clemens", but your repeated use of "scumbag" is not giving an impression of objectivity, and will probably get jumped on. I can perhaps see it applied to Clemens's agents (though I wouldn't do so, absent overwhelming evidence to the contrary; in fact, they seem to have done a good job of maximizing Roger's earnings), but the attorney? I mean, the whole business of defense lawyer potentially has a patina of sleaze (e.g., what do you do if asked to defend a dude you think is guilty? Turn down the money? Right)...

Well, I don't mind being accused of a lack of objectivity. I've looked at the evidence to date and have no reason to believe Clemens' denials. Could that change? Yes, if McNamee declares under oath that he was pressured by Federal agents to implicate Clemens and that everything he has said was false, and then those same federal agents come out and confirm that this was all a conspiracy to implicate Roger Clemens. Since we know that's not going to happen, I'm comfortable with the conclusions I've drawn from the available evidence.

As for the use of the term "scum bag", if you take a closer look at Clemens' agents, I think you'll find that they aren't exactly regarded as angels, though its certainly true that they've generally just done his bidding and certainly got him a lot of money. I simply regard agents and defense attorneys in general (especially super-expensive, "aw shucks I'm just a country lawyer" types) as scummy in the extreme.

[BERIGAN]

The short time I listened to it- someone referred to the "post-sessions" (post season), 1919 Black Hawks (Black Sox) and they got Palmiero's name wrong.

What a joke......Congress should have done their homework. Half of them didn't know crap about baseball- there should have been a quiz before you were allowed to ask questions to Fehr and Selig.

Black Hawks??? Oh brother....Well, congress surely has nothing better to do than waste time on this anyway.

[Chalupa]

Barry Bonds Asks Judge To Toss Out Perjury Case

http://www.ktvu.com/sports/15122501/detail.html

[Dan Gould]

Barry Bonds Asks Judge To Toss Out Perjury Case

http://www.ktvu.com/sports/15122501/detail.html

I think this is a standard legal strategy, similar to the motion for a directed verdict of not guilty at the conclusion of the prosecutor's case (didn't OJ's team make that motion? that took chutzpah).

The funny thing is that at the time of the indictment, it was noted by one of those legal analysts that the way a prosecutor goes after someone for perjury is to ask similar questions in different ways multiple times. The idea is to cover every possible interpretation or understanding so that a defendant can't say "I thought you meant X when you asked that" because "X" has already been asked and answered (untruthfully).

On a separate note, are we going to keep all steroid discussion in this thread going forward, or should we revive the old Bonds thread?

[Tim McG]

Congress asking Justice Department to investigate Tejada

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3197286

That can't be! Haven't you heard? They only hound Barry Bonds!

So where is this media hounding of Tejeda, Dan?

Clemens got a free pass, too.

Bonds is the only ballplayer to get this shabby treatment from the press.

You know it. I know it.

[Larry Kart]

Clemens got a free pass, too.

Bonds is the only ballplayer to get this shabby treatment from the press.

You know it. I know it.

Are you kidding? I read many opinion pieces and new stories that tore the s--- out of Clemens after his press conference and further stuff from his camp (the news stories implicitly doubtful, the opinion pieces explicitly doubtful or worse), plus I heard lots of stuff on sports talk radio in the same vein (obviously, I'm wasting my life). Yes, I read some stuff that gave or tried to give Clemens a pass, but my honest impression was that it was at least 60-40 Roger is lying, maybe more than that.

[T.D.]

... plus I heard lots of stuff on sports talk radio in the same vein (obviously, I'm wasting my life).

I'd never have imagined you listen to sports talk radio. [Disclaimer: I used to listen sometimes, while driving. Probably wouldn't listen any more, but currently live out of broadcast range of sports talk stations, so it's not an issue.]

[Dan Gould]

Clemens got a free pass, too.

Bonds is the only ballplayer to get this shabby treatment from the press.

You know it. I know it.

Are you kidding? I read many opinion pieces and new stories that tore the s--- out of Clemens after his press conference and further stuff from his camp (the news stories implicitly doubtful, the opinion pieces explicitly doubtful or worse), plus I heard lots of stuff on sports talk radio in the same vein (obviously, I'm wasting my life). Yes, I read some stuff that gave or tried to give Clemens a pass, but my honest impression was that it was at least 60-40 Roger is lying, maybe more than that.

I'd say the percentage is closer to 80-20. You have to look far and wide to find a print journalist argue against Clemens' guilt (don't know about sports radio, I avoid them like the plague - plus I wouldn't be surprised if sports radio finds more Clemens defenders, based on the need to take positions that will generate phone calls).

[Tim McG]

Clemens got a free pass, too.

Bonds is the only ballplayer to get this shabby treatment from the press.

You know it. I know it.

Are you kidding? I read many opinion pieces and new stories that tore the s--- out of Clemens after his press conference and further stuff from his camp (the news stories implicitly doubtful, the opinion pieces explicitly doubtful or worse), plus I heard lots of stuff on sports talk radio in the same vein (obviously, I'm wasting my life). Yes, I read some stuff that gave or tried to give Clemens a pass, but my honest impression was that it was at least 60-40 Roger is lying, maybe more than that.

OK, so a week's worth of press equals three years of media bullshit aimed at Barry Bonds?

You can't be serious.

[Aggie87]

Clemens got a free pass, too.

Bonds is the only ballplayer to get this shabby treatment from the press.

You know it. I know it.

Are you kidding? I read many opinion pieces and new stories that tore the s--- out of Clemens after his press conference and further stuff from his camp (the news stories implicitly doubtful, the opinion pieces explicitly doubtful or worse), plus I heard lots of stuff on sports talk radio in the same vein (obviously, I'm wasting my life). Yes, I read some stuff that gave or tried to give Clemens a pass, but my honest impression was that it was at least 60-40 Roger is lying, maybe more than that.

OK, so a week's worth of press equals three years of media bullshit aimed at Barry Bonds?

You can't be serious.

Ok - you're complaining that Clemens hasn't had 3 yrs of bad press now? When the allegations just came out a few weeks ago?

That makes NO sense.

Or do you want the amount of bad press that Clemens has had in 6 weeks to equal what Bonds has had in 3 yrs? Then it will finally be fair in your eyes?

[Dan Gould]

How about Roger's agents ridiculous 18000 word "report" on Roger's career stats (which looks more like a salary arbitration argument than anything else)? As if anyone ever said that steroids automatically turn you into Walter Johnson. If they had that kind of effect, every pitcher in the game would be on them. But as most people understand, its about how they effect recovery after workouts, the ability to work out harder, more frequently ... all things that have marginal effects when it comes to a pitcher's season statistics.

But if Roger really wants to play that game, McNamee's lawyer should put out a much shorter report, summarized thusly:

Clemens record on June 10, 1998:

6-6, 3.75

On or around June 11, Clemens began steroid use

Clemens record after June 10, 1998:

14-0, 2.25

Edited January 28, 2008 by Dan Gould

[Dan Gould]

Looks like the noose might be tightening around old Roger:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/sports/b.../30clemens.html

Pettitte Will Discuss Clemens, Lawyers Say

By DUFF WILSON and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT

Published: January 30, 2008

WASHINGTON — When Andy Pettitte gives a sworn deposition to staff members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, lawyers for his former personal trainer, Brian McNamee, say they know part of what he will say.

Pettitte and McNamee talked in 2001 and 2002 about Roger Clemens’s use of steroids and human growth hormone, McNamee’s lawyers, Earl Ward and Richard Emery, said Tuesday.

They said that Pettitte, who has acknowledged receiving H.G.H. from McNamee in 2002, will provide the first account of contemporaneous conversations with McNamee about Clemens’s use of performance-enhancing drugs in earlier years.

Clemens’s lawyer in Washington responded Tuesday with another strong denial that Clemens had ever used performance-enhancing drugs.

“Regardless of what Mr. McNamee purports to have said, Roger Clemens’s remarkable success as a pitcher has everything to do with his extraordinary work ethic and his innate abilities, and nothing to do with H.G.H. or steroids,” the lawyer, Lanny A. Breuer, said in a telephone interview.

“Let me be clear: Roger Clemens never took H.G.H. and he never took steroids,” he added.

Pettitte’s deposition, originally scheduled for Wednesday morning, was moved back to next Monday morning, a day before Clemens is to talk to committee staff members, the committee announced Tuesday.

“Mr. Pettitte is cooperating voluntarily with the committee, and we look forward to his testimony on Monday,” Henry A. Waxman, the California Democrat who is chairman of the committee, and Tom Davis of Virginia, the ranking Republican, wrote in a statement.

Karen Lightfoot, a spokeswoman for Waxman, said she could give no reason for the delay. Pettitte’s lawyers did not return calls for comment.

According to a lawyer familiar with the matter, Jim Murray, an agent for Clemens, has hired a lawyer and has been asked to meet with Congressional investigators in Washington about his conversations with McNamee concerning Clemens in 2003 or 2004, and more recently on Dec. 5, 2007. Murray did not return a telephone message seeking comment.

Chuck Knoblauch, the former Yankee second baseman, is scheduled to lead off the revised schedule for depositions or transcribed interviews. He will speak to committee staff members Friday. Pettitte will follow on Monday, Clemens on Tuesday, McNamee on Feb. 7 and Kirk Radomski, a former Mets clubhouse attendant who says he supplied drugs to dozens of major league baseball players, on Feb. 12. The depositions are private.

The committee has scheduled a Feb. 13 public hearing to receive testimony under oath from those five men.

The staff investigation is focused on Clemens’s denials of taking steroids or H.G.H. Waxman has said the panel is relying on a report on drugs in baseball by George J. Mitchell to set the stage for tougher drug testing policies in Major League Baseball. Clemens is under scrutiny because he challenged the report.

McNamee has spoken with federal investigators on the condition that he could be prosecuted only if he did not tell the truth.

In describing H.G.H. injections, McNamee told those investigators and Mitchell that he injected Clemens at least four times in the latter part of the summer of 2000, injected Knoblauch at least seven to nine times in the spring and early summer of 2001, and injected Pettitte at least two to four times in the spring of 2002.

McNamee also said he injected Clemens with steroids in 1998, 2000 and 2001. He did not say he injected Pettitte or Knoblauch with steroids.

Since the players never talked with Mitchell, the Congressional depositions or interviews will be the first questions they answer outside their lawyers’ offices or, in Clemens’s case, the CBS program “60 Minutes” on Jan. 6. The stakes are higher now. False statements to Congressional investigators could result in criminal charges punishable by up to five years in prison.

“Pettitte is a stand-up guy,” said Emery, one of McNamee’s lawyers. “We expect him to tell the truth, and if he does so, he will corroborate Brian.”

Emery suggested that the reason for the delay in giving the depositions was to give Clemens more time to change his account, a suggestion rejected by Clemens’s lawyer.

Emery and Ward said that not only did McNamee and Pettitte talk about Clemens’s drug use on several occasions, but that Clemens might have influenced Pettitte the first time Pettitte asked to use a performance-enhancing drug.

“There was a conversation in the gym where Pettitte came over to Brian and told him, ‘Why didn’t you tell me about that stuff?’ ” Emery said in a telephone interview Tuesday. “It appeared to be after a conversation with Clemens, but he didn’t know what was said in that conversation.”

Ward, in a separate telephone interview, said, “Brian discouraged him at first, and then less than a year later he came back and that is when Brian injected him.”

McNamee had told Mitchell he injected Pettitte in the spring of 2002 to help speed recovery from elbow tendinitis.

I have to wonder if the committee staffers intend to inform Clemens what Pettitte or Murray say. If Pettitte confirms the conversation about Clemens using PEDs, or that he came to McNamee after a conversation with Clemens, and then Murray confirms the 2003-04 conversation with McNamee - well, the jig is up, as they say. Roger would have no choice but to 'fess up or take the Fifth.

[Tim McG]

Maybe that's what you were thinking, but that's not what came out.

Your words indicated you didn't think Clemens was getting the same amount of bad press as Bonds.

And my comment was made in jest because you can only live in Self Delusion Land to believe that Bonds is the only one getting attacked in the press.

and as far as Tejada goes, the fact that he's not only kept his mouth shut but has virtually disappeared might have a lot to do with how much media attention his legal problems have gotten. If you mount a full-court defense like Clemens, then your words and actions get dissected because you are putting them out there for dissection. When they come off as illogical, questionable ethically, or obnoxious and aggressive, people have cause to write that his protestations are not credible.

On the other hand, if you keep your mouth shut, there won't be anything to say until the Feds come back with an indictment for perjury, at which point I'd expect to not only see a lot of negative attacks on Tejada as a cheater and liar, but you might even see some attempts to rehabilitate one Raphael Palmiero, if it indeed turns out that he might have plausibly gotten a "tainted" B-12 shot from a man facing perjury charges over his own use of steroids.

C'mon, Dan.

Bonds is the only one who has had to endure the sheer wieght in numbers of decidedly negative and blantantly unbalanced press stories aimmed at attacking him.

In comparison, Clemens and Tejeda are just babes in the woods.

You know it and I know it.

Edited January 30, 2008 by GoodSpeak

[Dan Gould]

Newsday has a little more detail from their own source:

According to someone informed of a conversation between Pettitte and McNamee in the 2001-02 offseason at Clemens' Houston home, the Yankees pitcher asked McNamee why the trainer wasn't giving Pettitte the same "stuff" he was giving Clemens. McNamee responded by telling Pettitte that the "stuff" was illegal, according to the source.

Ward offered a similar rendition. In Clemens' home, Ward said: "Andy came over [to McNamee] and said, 'How come you didn't tell me about that stuff?' The only reason Andy could have said that is because Roger must have told him."

If Pettitte verifies the details in the first paragraph, Clemens' goose is cooked. And Pettitte has been a stand-up guy so far (relatively speaking).

[Dan Gould]

From the NY Times, regarding Chuck Knoblauch's statements after his interview with committee staff:

Asked what he hoped to accomplish, Knoblauch said in reference to his son: “That maybe one day when he grows up, that he won’t have to worry about drugs in sports. That’s why I have him here today, to learn a very valuable lesson, that if you do something in life, be prepared to talk about it open and honestly.”

That sure sounds like another former McNamee client acknowledging that McNamee told the truth about him. Is Roger really going to testify and risk a perjury charge?

[Dan Gould]

Oh, and one more thing - the Times reports that Knoblauch spoke for an hour and a half - but Jim Murray's interview lasted three and a half hours.

If Murray denied that he had contemporaneous discussions with McNamee about Clemens' potential exposure to testing positive, why would it take three and a half hours? The mere fact that the interview took that long suggests pretty strongly that he chose to tell the truth about what happened rather than protect Clemens and risk perjury, and that the conversation lasted so long because there were plenty of follow-up questions, starting with what he did after talking to McNamee - what did he tell the Hendricks brothers? What did he tell Clemens ...

It really is looking worse and worse for the Rocket.

[Tim McG]

Oh, and one more thing - the Times reports that Knoblauch spoke for an hour and a half - but Jim Murray's interview lasted three and a half hours.

If Murray denied that he had contemporaneous discussions with McNamee about Clemens' potential exposure to testing positive, why would it take three and a half hours? The mere fact that the interview took that long suggests pretty strongly that he chose to tell the truth about what happened rather than protect Clemens and risk perjury, and that the conversation lasted so long because there were plenty of follow-up questions, starting with what he did after talking to McNamee - what did he tell the Hendricks brothers? What did he tell Clemens ...

It really is looking worse and worse for the Rocket.

Gossip usually does, Dan.

[Larry Kart]

Lord knows I shouldn't do this, but hasn't Goodspeak made a sotto voce hard left turn recently? One of his core points IIRC used to be that that Bonds was being treated with unique unfairness in the whole affair, in large part because of racism -- a stance that he maintained when the Mitchell Report came out and attention was turned toward Clemens; as he then claimed that much of the media was giving Clemens a pass or the benefit of the doubt, while Bonds remained subject to the same old unfair vilification. Now Goodspeak feels that Clemens is in the unfairly vilified class, a victim of "gossip"? I'm not saying that it's impossible that both Clemens and Bonds are being unfairly vilified, but I wonder how Goodspeak accounts for this seemingly significant shift in media behavoir toward Clemens (if that's what he thinks has happened) or for his own shift in how he views this behavior.

[Dan Gould]

Holy shit, Clemens goose may be cooked now

Lawyers Say McNamee Has Physical Evidence

By DUFF WILSON and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT

Published: February 7, 2008

Brian McNamee has given federal investigators bloody gauze pads and syringes he used to inject Roger Clemens with steroids and human-growth hormone in 2000 and 2001, a lawyer familiar with the matter said Wednesday.

The former personal trainer hopes that DNA and chemical tests on the materials will prove he injected Clemens, as he contends, and thus prove that Clemens lied in a sworn deposition to Congressional investigators on Tuesday, the lawyer said.

If Clemens did not tell the truth in his deposition on Tuesday — and if he repeats his statements at a House Oversight committee hearing set for next Wednesday — the seven-time Cy Young Award winner could face charges of lying to federal officials, which is punishable by up to five years in prison.

The lawyer, who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the case, said McNamee had injected Clemens at the pitcher’s apartment in New York and then taken the syringes and pads to his home in Queens, where he had a medical waste-disposal facility.

But McNamee, a former police officer, never disposed of the evidence, the lawyer said, and now those items could have a bearing on the Clemens-McNamee drama.

The lawyer said that McNamee never told investigators for former Senator George J. Mitchell about the physical evidence as Mitchell was compiling his report on the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball, a report that was issued on Dec. 13. Nor, the lawyer said, did McNamee initially tell federal investigators about the evidence. In both instances, the lawyer said, McNamee was influenced by ongoing loyalty to a player with whom he had worked so closely for a number of seasons.

But that sentiment apparently changed after Clemens held a news conference in Houston on Jan. 7 and played a tape of a phone conversation he had secretly recorded with McNamee on Jan. 4. “It’s war,” one of McNamee’s lawyers said after the tape was played.

In fact, later that same week, Jeff Novitzky, the Internal Revenue Service special agent who has led the criminal investigations into steroid distribution in sports, and two assistant United States attorneys from California traveled to New York, in part for the drug-related sentencing of Marion Jones in Westchester County.

But before the sentencing occurred, Novitzky and the prosecutors met with McNamee and his lawyers, on Jan. 10. And it was at that meeting that they were given the physical evidence, the lawyer said.

Clemens’s Washington attorney, Lanny Breur, issued a statement late Wednesday afternoon that contended that the notion that McNamee had saved gauze pads and syringes for seven years “defies all sensibility.”

“It is just not credible — who in their right mind does such a thing?” Breur said.

Breuer called McNamee a “troubled” man who had lied in the past and said that he now “apparently has manufactured evidence.”

“As Roger has said under oath to Congress and to the American public, at no time did he take steroids or growth hormone. Despite the desperate smears of Brian McNamee, Roger is looking forward to testifying before Congress next week to set the record straight. He will not waiver.”

Clemens gave a nearly five-hour deposition to investigators for the House Oversight committee Tuesday. Afterward, Clemens said, “It was great to be able to tell them what I’ve been saying all along — that I’ve never used steroids or growth hormone.”

For McNamee’s lawyers, it was apparently the moment they had been waiting for. They wanted Clemens to testify under oath before revealing they had previously undisclosed evidence — apparently the gauze pads and syringes now cited by the lawyers familiar with the case.

McNamee’s lawyers, Earl Ward and Richard Emery, said in telephone interviews earlier Wednesday that McNamee would produce “corroborative physical evidence” when he gives a sworn deposition to congressional investigators on Thursday.

McNamee’s lawyers declined to specifically describe the evidence until it was given to the House Oversight committee. “We want to give this to Congress first and have a more complete discussion after that,” Ward said.

Ward, McNamee’s lead lawyer, added, “It’s evidence that was turned over to the federal government and that they’ve had for some time.”

Emery, another lawyer for McNamee, said, “It is evidence that will corroborate that Brian administered steroids to Roger Clemens in the time period and in the ways that he has accurately described.”

Asked why the evidence was not given to either Novitzky or Mitchell last year, Emery said, “It’s based on the unique circumstances of this case.”

McNamee has told federal investigators and Mitchell that he injected Clemens at least 16 times with steroids and human-growth hormone in a period ranging from 1998 to 2001. But the physical evidence now handed over to federal investigators only apparently deals with a period in 2000 and 2001, when Clemens was playing for the Yankees and McNamee was on the team payroll, and both men were based in New York. Earlier, in 1998, both were together on the Toronto Blue Jays.

McNamee spoke to Mitchell’s investigators under an agreement that he would not be prosecuted if he told them the truth.

Clemens has flatly denied McNamee’s assertions in a sworn deposition to congressional investigators Tuesday, in earlier public statements and in a defamation lawsuit against McNamee. McNamee’s charges and Clemens’s denials are the main focus of the congressional investigation into the accuracy of the Mitchell report.

Two former teammates of Clemens, who shared McNamee as a trainer with Clemens, have not joined Clemens in challenging McNamee’s truthfulness in the Mitchell report.

McNamee has said he injected Chuck Knoblauch with H.G.H. at least seven to nine times in 2001. Knoblauch has not disputed that report in public statements, saying, “It is what it is.” Knoblauch spoke with congressional investigators for 90 minutes on Friday.

McNamee has also said he injected Andy Pettitte with H.G.H. two to four times in 2002, when Pettitte was recovering from an elbow injury. Pettitte, who gave a deposition to the congressional investigators for more than two hours on Monday, has confirmed what McNamee said about him.

Clemens, Pettitte, Knoblauch, McNamee and Kirk Radomski, a former New York Mets clubhouse attendant who has admitted providing drugs to dozens of major league baseball players and to McNamee, have been invited to testify to the oversight committee on Wednesday. (Radomski is to be sentenced in a plea bargain in San Francisco Friday and is to give a deposition in Washington next Tuesday.)

McNamee was employed as a bullpen catcher and batting practice pitcher for the Yankees in 1995, as a strength and conditioning coach for the Blue Jays, where he met Clemens, in 1998-2000, and as an assistant strength and conditioning coach for the Yankees in 2000 and 2001.

After the Yankees removed him from the payroll, he continued to serve as a personal trainer for Clemens.

As ESPN is reporting, if DNA material plus drug residue is recovered from the syringes/gauze pads, investigators may seek a court order for a DNA sample from Clemens. If it matches, Lanny Breur will be eating his words. And Clemens will be heading to jail.

[Dan Gould]

That was from the NYT. Here's an excerpt from the Daily News, on the syringes:

McNamee kept syringes, gauze pads and vials from the 2000 and 2001 seasons because he feared Clemens would deny illicit drug use if the matter was ever investigated, the source added.

A lab should be able to determine if the syringes or vials contained steroids or human growth hormone seven years ago, according to a sports medicine doctor who requested anonymity. But dried blood and DNA might present issues, he added.

Another expert cautioned that the lab work on the syringes and vials could take a considerable amount of time.