Roger Clemens' pitching resume says he's one of the very best pitchers in history. We don't need to go back over all that, because no one could earnestly dispute that. He still hasn't gotten into the Hall of Fame after he votes, though, topping out at 54.1 percent this past year. We also all know the reason for this, which is that Clemens was included in the Mitchell Report as having used PEDs through at least the latter part of his career.
Clemens has vehemently denied the charges, of course, including through litigation. In particular, he's targeted former trainer Brian McNamee.
Wednesday night, Clemens appears on "Undeniable with Joe Buck" on the Audience Network (only on DirecTV and AT&T U-verse) at 8 p.m. ET/PT and when the subject of the Mitchell Report comes, the Rocket starts spitting fire.
Here's a quick clip (warning, Clemens says the s-word, so that's probably not safe for work):
Some of the highlights:
- (If he didn't have such a strong family support system), "I'd have probably told everybody, excuse my language, to go s--- in their hat."
- "It's shameful, what (Senator George) Mitchell did. I passed every test, I opened up my life to them. I told him, 'come check whatever you want.' They spent a lot of our taxpayer dollars. We did it the right way, we wanted to deal with facts and we dealt with facts."
- On McNamee, Clemens said he didn't even want to mention his name. "It makes me sick to my stomach, because like I told y'all, I look for the good in people. I don't think people are trying to get into my life."
- "What I know now, I should've set my wallet on the table, because that's all it was, was about money."
- And then, the huge grenade was lobbed. Clemens mentions Henry Waxman, the congressman who was the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and called the 2008 hearing on the Mitchell Report that pitted Clemens against McNamee on national television (here's nytimes.com story on Waxman regretting the hearing).
- The quote: "I'd like to find out if Waxman had a referral fee from Mitchell. I think Mitchell got paid, before my name got put in there, I think he got paid close to $40 million. It was nothing short than a Jerry Springer Show."
Holy smokes. If I'm understanding him correctly here, Clemens thinks there was some bribery going on in order to include his name in the report? That's a big one.
Much like when he pitched, The Rocket doesn't hold back.
There's more to the hour-long episode. Here's a trailer:
On the whole, though, the Mitchell Report stuff seems like the most eye-catching.