A day after Roger Clemens and Brian MacNamee testified before Congress regarding the former's alleged steroid and HGH use, we are no closer to understanding anything about the situation at hand.
It appeared from the testimony that neither Clemens nor MacNamee has any credibility left; both were shown to be liars, or, at least, very sketchy in their recollections of the events in question.
Skipping the argument that such discussions should or should not take place under oath in front of Congress (they shouldn't), the fact remains that players such as Clemens and Barry Bonds are but two of dozens of baseball players who have taken performance-enhancing drugs.
All of this talk about baseball, by the way, takes away from the fact that football, basketball, hockey, track and field, and cyclists either are or likely are taking some sort of booster that is against the law.
It's all a matter of degrees, and the consensus seems to be that Roger Clemens taking legal drugs to boost his health to pitch are fine, and him taking illegal drugs to do the same thing is a crime beyond words.
I am not a part of this consensus.
You can say all you want about "protecting the kids", but if there are kids who decide that taking drugs like these to enhance their performance, then blame their parents, not Clemens and Bonds.
It still remains that baseball completely ignored drug use in the past 10-15 years, and they are now paying the price. Getting shady trainers to testify against superstars is not going to solve the problem, either for Congress or for baseball.
To me, there is one simple solution: acknowledge that the league screwed up, and move on. Banning players like Clemens and Bonds from the Hall of Fame ignores the accomplishments they achieved before their alleged steroid use, and the league would be better off if they admitted cupability in this mess, and led the charge from here on in to a clean sport.
Will this happen? It's about as likely as Shoeless Joe and Pete Rose getting into the Hall. But, here's hoping.
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Scary thing is they both lied to Congress. All that had to happen is for one of them to tell the truth: Clemens had to come clean or MacNamee had to stop contradicting himself. That's it. And neither one could do it.
If the all time home run leader or the all time hit leader isn't in the hall of fame...then you don't have a hall of fame at all.
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