Surly Roger Clemens is entering the delusional phase of his life. Much like Richard Bruce Cheney, facts don't matter to Rocket Roger, but vanity does. This is why both of them have broken their self-imposed silence and are going out on speaking tours in order to influence public opinion.
In both cases, the extreme narcissism of these two men may actually backfire and the public will have even lower opinions of them. This vanity is driving both men to speak out in their defense, but instead of generating sympathy, their answers only beg for more questions.
Clemens decided to end his sllence on ESPN Radio, appearing on the Mike and Mike in the Morning for around 15 minutes.
This was how Nick Cafardo, the national baseball writer for the Boston Globe sees Clemons latest tirade:
Either Clemens is somehow telling the truth - and that would be as surprising as him pitching a third 20-strikeout game, and fanning the last 20 batters he faced to do it - or he's telling the truth as he believes it in his world.
Given how far he has stretched this out, what lengths he has taken to deny what appears to be airtight evidence that he did performance-enhancing drugs, if he's found to be guilty, then this is a much sadder story, because he would come off as a delusional individual caught up in his own web of lies. Many in the sports world already believe that.
Clemens has been tight-lipped since his performance before Congress in February, 2008. The timing of his ass-saving public speaking engagements just happens to coincide with the release of a new book by the New York Daily News,"American Icon: The Fall of Roger Clemens and the Rise of Steroids in America's Pastime,"
Adding to the suspicion that Clemens is making self-serving denials is the fact that he hired a PR firm, Levick Strategic Communications. A trade publication devoted to Public Relations, Media Bistro, noted that LSC is the third PR firm Clemens has used in the past 15 months.
Michael O'Keefe, a sportswriter for the NY Daily News (which is publishing American Icon), said that the flack that Clemens hired Gene Grabowski has been busy the last few monthswith clients Michael Phelps and Alex Rodriguez.
Grabowski's specialty, according to his firm's Web site, is food-related crises. In recent weeks, Grabowski has commented on KFC's ill-fated grilled chicken launch — the company had to rescind a free-dinner offer after its restaurants were overwhelmed by the response — and the peanut salmonella scare.
Grabowski is a former vice president of communications for the Grocery Manufacturers of America, which represents some of the biggest food companies in the world, including Coca-Cola, ConAgra Foods Inc., and Procter & Gamble. He also worked as director in the Washington office of Burston-Marsteller, the international public affairs firm that has been criticized for its work on behalf of the nuclear power industry, tobacco companies and Blackwater USA, the private military contractor.
Levick has championed such paragons of virtue such as AIG, Enron, the Catholic Church, and the Republican Party. According to Cafardo , Grabowski said that Clemens is going to vigorously defend himself against what he perceives as lies in the book.
One of the book's four authors, Teri Thompson, took issue with Clemens saying there was nothing new in the book, because if that was the case, "Why did he choose to respond?"
Characterizing his retort to the book, she said, "I think he did today what he did before Congress."
Josh Alper, a freelance columnist writing on the NBC Washington website, had these observations of Clemens' performance:
The interview was short, less than 15 minutes, and Clemens didn't have anything particularly new to say to questions asked by Mike Greenberg or Mike Golic. He said it was "impossible" that the federal investigators had drug paraphernalia with his DNA and residue of performance-enhancing drugs because he never had Brian McNamee inject him with such things. He maintains that Andy Pettitte "misremembers" a conversation about human growth hormone, yet claims that he and Pettitte still talk and that he's never asked him why he would "misremember" a conversation to Congress.
That's the thing about Clemens' answers: Whenever it gets stickier than just calling McNamee a liar, he loses his way. How could you talk to Pettitte and the fact that you've called him a liar never come up? It strains any credulity. He did a similar dance when Greenberg and Golic asked him about his defamation lawsuit against McNamee being largely dismissed. Clemens sounds very confident when he's making his studied denials, but in those other moments he sounds like he's not even sure what's going to come out of his mouth next.
Clemens didn't help himself with his new rationale, suggesting he would be insane for taking PED's:
"I mean it would be suicidal for me to even think about taking any of these dangerous drugs," Clemens growled on the Mike and Mike Show on ESPN 2. "Our family has a history of heart conditions. My brother had a heart attack in his late 40s. My stepdad died of a heart attack"
Good one, Roger. It took you 15 months to come up with that lame reasoning. Even though you allegedly attendedat one of the better state universities, University of Texas, you are just plain ignorant. The fact that your step-father died of a heart attack is tragic, but in no way has any bearing on your FAMILY medical history. It may be true that your step-father did die of a heart attack, but it is irrelevant and IMO you slipped that fact in to generate sympathy for you.
If anyone can actually generate negative sympathy it is Clemens. His highly-paid handlers don't seem to be worth a wooden nickel when they said the following:
"Because of the litigation, he felt obligated on advice of counsel not to speak," Grabowski said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "What he learned in that year was that by not speaking no one was going to tell his story."
That doesn't pass the bullshit test since it was Clemens' lawyers that suggested he hire LCR reported O'Keefe:
Clemens hired Grabowski after meeting with officials from his firm about three weeks ago in Houston. Grabowski was referred to Clemens by the Rocket's attorney Rusty Hardin and Randy Hendricks, one of the former Yankee pitcher's agents.
“They came in and said, ‘You need to get your story out about all this garbage that is being said,'” Clemens said later on “Mike and Mike in the Morning.”
Add Alper to the growing list of non-believers in Clemens, wondering what was the point of this PR offensive:
The most interesting part of Clemens' approach is that he knows how hard it will be for any court of law to prove that he used steroids, so he's just trying to concentrate on winning the PR battle. He started the interview with a convenient interruption from one of his kids so that he could be on air telling him how he'd take him to school in a moment. He talked over and over again about his charity work, all the batting practice he throws to kids and all the speeches he gives about the dangers of steroids.
Yet, for all those talks, he refused to condemn other players who have admitted steroid use. When asked about the Hall of Fame, he pointed to his statistics as being enough for inclusion but refused to answer a follow-up about how voters should consider players who used steroids. If they're so bad and so wrong, shouldn't those who use them be punished?
I have never been a fan of Clemens despite the fact that I am Red Sox fan. I had no problem with him leaving Boston after the 1996 season because I assumed that he was just a mediocre overpaid jerk that couldn't leave town fast enough. Back then, Clemens told a whopper of a lie that he wanted to leave Boston, so he could spend more time with his family in Texas...And then he signed with the Toronto Blue Jays! If Clemens had signed with the Houston Astros or the Texas Rangers, then the line about spending more time with your family would have been believable.
Clemens has shown nothing but contempt for fans. I once worked with a colleague that witnessed Clemens have a temper tantrum when a pizza parlor refused to give him a free pizza. According to my colleague, Clemens became agitated when he was treated like any other customer and asked to pay for his food. Talk about a chip on your shoulder. This guy is a schnorrer. He was earning millions of dollars a year with the Red Sox, had endorsements, licensing money from MLB Player's Association, and received a significant per diem on road trips for food, but became upset when some kid at a pizza shop didn't kiss his ass and fawn over him.
And that just might be Clemens biggest problem. He expects people to fawn over him, just as many members of Congress did in a shameless display of unprofessionalism when they asked the 350 game winner for autographs. Clemens' sense of entitlement is not helping his case. It didn't help him last year when he rudely tried to talk when Henry Waxman gaveled him into submission when Clemens tried to interrupt the chair of the House hearings.
It certainly isn't helping Clemens in the court of public opinion. IMO, hiring the PR firm that defended Enron and AIG is a sure-fire loser strategy. And it probably won't help the Rocket when the pressing issue of lying to Congress goes before a grand jury.
"This, in my view, is going to backfire, because he's publicly now poking a stick in Congress' eye," McNamee's lead lawyer, Richard Emery, told the AP in a phone interview. "And, to me, all that's going to do is vitalize the prosecutors going forward. Nobody, for a minute, thinks he's not a liar just because he's talking."
Like Pete Rose, it will be the narcissism that destroys Clemens. The steroids accusations were bad enough, but lying to Congress in a performance that makes Rafael Palmeiro's finger-shaking denial seem truthful might mean that Clemens should get used to wearing orange...as in orange jumpsuits that prisoners wear. The sympathy express for Clemens left the station years ago and his self-inflicted denials may be his enduring legacy.