No balls about it!

Yesterday's widely publicized questioning period regarding the Roger Clemens steroid scandal provided viewers with some of the most dramatic and intense moments outside of a Fox reality show. As an avid Blue Jays fan, I couldn't help but smile as Clemens awkwardly shifted around his seat, attempting to explain his often contradictory stories regarding his relationship with Jose Canseco and Brain McNamee.

It's no secret around the baseball world that Clemens is an egomaniac, and has told his share of lies. I avidly remember the circumstances in which he left the Jays back in 1998, using a vague (and apparently illegal) clause in his contract to take a much more lucrative offer with the New York Yankees. This was after he repeatedly assured both his Toronto fans and Blue Jays G.M. Gord Ash that he had no intention of ditching the team. For crying out loud, the man is so self-absorbed that the names of all of his children start with the letter "K" as a tribute to his strikeouts (let's see here... Kody, Kimble, Kris, Karen, Kbobby, Kxavier... ).

The, Clemens, the (it’s translated from German).

There are some people in the media who are painting this inquiry as a witch hunt. It is becoming blatantly obvious that steroids were slowly drifting towards general acceptance in the professional sports world long before the whole thing blew up. If you put yourself in the shoes of a young athlete who has sacrificed his or her life to make the cut on a professional sports team and the only difference between being a somebody and being a nobody is an occasional injection, the decision is understandable.

But Clemens was a somebody long before he started taking steroids. To make things worse, he has repeatedly lied to fans, the media, and now directly to a group of congressmen regarding his involvement in the matter. The man seems to have no problem propping up his "solid" character during press conferences, yet he has failed miserably to take the high road during direct questioning. This is in direct contrast to Marion Jones, who in my opinion took an incredibly courageous step by admitting her prior drug use and giving her gold medals back to the IOC. Unlike Jose Canseco, there was no financial gain to be had by admitting her mistakes, and it's a travesty that a misguided judge decided to turn her into a scapegoat by slapping her with a six month prison term.

To me, this arrogant behaviour underscores a major image problem that baseball players have faced since the strike of 1994. The collective bargaining agreement has ensured exponential salary growth to players, while completely marginalizing smaller market teams. Major League Baseball's answer to these problems was to turn a blind eye to the drug problem as the home run explosion effectively brought the sport back to pre-strike levels. Even when the steroid problem became public, it took the sport years before drug testing was finally imposed, as management had to "negotiate" these new policies with the player's union. Shame on both the players union and Major League Baseball for allowing this to go on as long as it has. As far as I'm concerned, this is one witch hunt that is justified.