Roger Clemens Press Conference

Roger Clemens’ lawyer opened the press conference, and spoke briefly toward the end of it; here is some of his major points:

- Roger, along with Pettitte, knew that McNamee mentioned their names to Mitchell eightdays prior to the release of the Mitchell Report, but was told by their lawyers that names might not be mentioned.

- Clemens investigative team includes a total of two retired Houston police.

- McNamee may have been told by the Mitchell investigators and Federal prosecutors what the “truth” was supposed to be.

- McNamee sent text messages to attempt to speak to Roger, this led to the conversation they had on the telephone on January 4^th.

- No first-hand knowledge of any wrong doing by Mitchell & government investigators, it all came from McNamee.

- Clemens will be at Congress next week.

- He felt that McNamee was trying to set Roger up in the phone call because he was constantly asking "what do you want me to do?".

- Clemens will not take a polygraph test because of the inaccuracies of the tests.

Here are some random quotes from the phone call between McNamee and Clemens:

Roger Clemens - So much of this in untrue.

Brian McNamee - I know man.
…

R.C. - I just want the truth out there.

B. M. - The truth is the truth, it is what it is.
…

R.C. – I just don’t know why you did it.
…

B.M. – I’ll do anything I can do to help.

R.C. – (you) just need to come out and tell the truth.

B.M. – All I did was what I thought was right.. I never thought it was right, but I thought that I had no other choice.
…

R.C. – I didn’t do it.
…

R.C. – For the life of me I’m trying to find out why you would tell guys that I used steroids.

B.M. – I understand that, I understand that.
…

R.C. – I didn’t do this Mac.

Throughout the tape, McNamee never accuses Clemens of any wrong doing, or steroid use. Every time Roger said "I didn't do it" McNamee never says "Yes you did". Also McNamee offered to go to jail for Clemens. McNamee sounded like a broken man during the conversation, saying how his wife and kids have left him.

After the phone conversation was played Roger spoke briefly to the press, and answered several questions. He was obviously very frustrated and angry throughout the entire press conference, and especially during the Q&A session which he ended abruptly when he began cursing and walked off stage.

I don't know if this helps Roger's cause, but it certainly didn't hurt him. From everything I've seen in the past two days I'm starting to believe Clemens more and more, however this may be the case because I want to believe him.

And in case you missed Roger last night on '60 Minutes', you can watch the full interview here.

In related news, Major League Baseball issued a press release today explaining several new rules that are being implemented to prevent the use of PED. The full press release can be found here.