Last week saw Old Man Winter sneak up on me and slap a fairly nasty cold on me which had me miss a few days from work and become banished to my couch and the awful trappings of daytime TV. There's only so many episodes of SportsCenter I can watch in a row, and the programming on ESPN after SportsCenter is not any better then the soaps on the lower channels. Also the Price is Right just seems wrong with Drew Carey, but I'm getting off topic here.
To get away from the doldrums of daytime T.V. (and to get better I guess) I made a visit to my doctor to be checked out and get some antibiotics. My doctor's a huge baseball fan and we always ended up talking about baseball for a bit when I'm in. The obvious hot-button topic of Roger Clemens came up and he had some interesting insights that I thought I'd share.
Doc was as unimpressed with the interviewing tactics of Mike Wallace as the rest of us were, and he thought that Roger opened a few doors during the interview that he decided not to walk through. The following transaction is the part that he had the most problem with:
- CLEMENS: Lidocaine, and B12. It's for my joints and and B12 I take still today.
- WALLACE: And that's all.?
- CLEMENS: That's it.
- WALLACE: Never, never a human growth hormone?
- CLEMENS: Never.
- WALLACE Never testosterone?
- CLEMENS: Never. Never.
- WALLACE: And never anabolic steroids?
- CLEMENS: Never.
- WALLACE: Swear?
- CLEMENS: Swear.
First off is Clemens claim that he was injected with Lidocaine. From my doctors professional opinion and experience this made absolutely no sense to him. In plain terms, Lidocaine is just a numbing agent similar to what a dentist would use on you. All it does is numb the immediate area around where it's injected (apparently Clemens ass) and does not travel in the blood stream and effect any other areas of significance. Basic conclusion here is there's no reason to inject this in you unless you've been eating too much candy, my doctor thought this was ludacris.
As far as the B12 goes to get "vitamins" my doctor also agreed with me that this was just silly. It's been known for awhile that a lot of people (especially body builders) use B12 to help mask other crap their putting into their bodies.
My doc basically wished Wallace pressed Clemens on why he was being injected with these more or less pointless drugs while having medical opinions and proof to back it up. Hopefully congress will pick up on this missed opportunity, interesting to hear his opinions none-the less.
Also while listening to Bill Simmons podcast yesterday I couldn't believe I haven't mentioned the rest of the 60 minutes episode. They interviewed a dictator, a hit-man, and Roger Clemens, all very stand up guys. Hilarious. Almost make me want to become a regular viewer.
As a die hard Sox fan, I know its probably hard to believe, its tough to not go along with the nation and think that he did steriods. for some reason i believe the big, dumb, texan. Hes a public icon and well liked in the media. He wont get the Mark McGwire treatment, meaning one bad move and youre done, finished. He is Roger Clemens, one of the greatest of all time. He will be proven innocent and wil be in the Hall Of Fame. He can sure count out this year for playing ball. No team wants this much publicity around their ball club before the season even gets under way.
-gdubs850
Posted by: gdubs850 | February 11, 2008 at 11:31 AM
In my heart of hearts I hope you're right gdub, I just don't think there's any way he's innocent here. Either way it's too bad it's come down to this with a lot of the greatest players of a generation, but like they say, you have to pay to play, and there has to be some repercussions to keep the name of the game as clean as possible.
Posted by: Derek Hixon | February 11, 2008 at 11:52 AM