Say it ain't so...

There are some days when I miss the United States terribly. I think fondly on our wide open expanses, the freedom one feels with the windows down, the radio blaring, hitting 75 or 80 mph on the interstate highway. My stomach still catches an itch or two when pictures of New York City flash on the movie screen or I watch David Tyree make a miraculous catch in the Superbowl. But there are days, when I’m glad to be distant and far away from the American media onslaught.

Having just watched the competing testimonies of Brian McNamee and Roger Clemens before the House oversight committee and after reading the New York Times article, “Clemens says Pettitte was Wrong about H.G.H. Remark,” I’m rather distraught. For the sake of Clemen’s own kids and the millions of children who have grown up idolizing The Rocket, I’d like to think he is speaking the truth, that he has, in fact, been falsely accused. I’m sorry to say that his story just doesn’t add up. I’m not a Yankee fan, but I seem to remember a close bond of friendship between Clemens and Pettitte. They played together as both Yankees and Rangers, sharing plans to retire. Throw into the mix affirmation by Pettitte and that rascally Chuck Knoblaugh that McNamee injected them, and the incident with Clemens and his nanny from seven years ago, and what you have is one royal mess - at least in my humble, across the Atlantic opinion.

The truth often hurts; it can even be outright offensive, but it still remains the truth. Without it, what do we really have - illusion, deception? The game of baseball has been forever tarnished. Our players are no longer viewed as Olympic gods, but as mere men and rightly so. We were wrong in the first place to expect and demand perfection, and they were wrong to succumb to the temptation they could deliver it. We were both sadly mistaken.

Home run records and low ERAs are great stuff, but integrity and honesty are the mark of a real man.