Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Roger Clemens & The Media
Is it just me or has the sports media broken the first rule of covering a story? How many reports have we seen or heard calling him "guilty"? Hey, I don't really care for the guy personally and I have my doubts, but isn't he innocent until proven guilty? Has anyone really taken the time to investigate his trainer? Hmm...methinks something is missing here.
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Roger Clemens is being judged harshly in the court of public opinion, where media has the first opportunity to insert their biases and beliefs, because he has made himself such an unsympathetic figure. If he "doesn't give a rat's ass" about anything, then why should anyone go out of their way to give him the benefit of the doubt. Remember, innocent until proven guilty is due process in the legal system. It's not an inalienable right where Clemens is currently being judged, in newspaper columns, blog postings and in gossip over the water cooler.
If the Rocket wasn't on the juice and other performance enhancers (and wouldn't the conspiracy theorists have a field day citing 'roid rage for Clemens snapping and throwing a jagged piece of broken bat at Piazza?), then he needed to immediately stand up and say "I'm innocent, I have never used steroids or HGH, and I'll gladly take a polygraph or go to any length to clear my name." Instead, he stayed silent, watched his workout partner and best friend Andy Pettitte admit to it, hid behind his lawyer, and then got belligerent that anyone dared question him.
(If he did do it, he should have told the truth, apologized, and accepted the few days of bad press. He could have even positioned the "lapses in judgement" in a way the public could have been sympathetic to, saying his extreme competitive nature and desire to win a championship for his teammates clouded his thinking.)
Instead we're left with McNamee repeatedly asking, "What do you want me to do?" as Clemens sleazily taped a phone call without the trainer's knowledge and Roger never coming up with an answer to satisfy his former friend or the American public.
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