Roger Clemens' record as a litigant continues to be just as bad as his record as a pitcher was good:
A federal judge in Texas reaffirmed his original dismissal of most of the claims in Roger Clemens' defamation suit against former trainer Brian McNamee, the New York Daily News reported Wednesday.
The decision clears the way for McNamee to pursue his own defamation suit against the former seven-time Cy Young Award winner.
In his opinion, U.S. District Court Judge Keith Ellison wrote that "if (Clemens) believes that the federal investigators or the Mitchell Commission overstepped the bounds of the law, he is free to bring suit against those enemies, subject to possible immunity."
That last bit refers to the main thrust of McNamee's defense, which was that he can't possibly be sued for defamation because his statements were made while being questioned by law enforcement. The judge agreed with that. Which is fine in my mind insofar as it relates to stuff he said to actual federal agents. I'm not so fine that things he said to George Mitchell should be privileged on those grounds, though, because last I checked, Mitchell was acting as an apparatchik for Major League Baseball's giant P.R. exercise that was the Mitchell Report, not any legitimate law enforcement function.
But that's boring legal stuff. The less-boring implication of all of this is that Clemens' use of the legal system to serve his own P.R. purposes has now imploded in spectacular fashion. Which I and every lawyer with half a brain said it would way back in January 2008. Let's review the reasons why we thought this:
Reason #1: Defamation cases are hard to win, especially for celebrities, and even when you do win, the damages are small;
Reason # 2: Defamation lawsuits often create bigger audiences for the false statements than the false statements enjoyed in the first place, and have the added negative effect of opening up one's life and reputation to scrutiny;
Reason # 3: Even if the statements made by the defamer really are false, the plaintiff -- Clemens in this case -- stands a good chance of whiffing on one of the other essential elements of the suit or some other technicality. When that happens the public only hears about the loss, and concludes that the defendant was telling the truth even if he wasn't.
To review the bidding: Clemens has lost the suit; Clemens' embarrassing and often shameful personal life came to light as a result of the suit; and even though Clemens' loss is on technical grounds as opposed to some judgment that he was actually lying, from now until the end of history, people will reasonably assume that he was, in fact, the liar (not that they didn't assume that anyway).
So once again, allow me to congratulate Roger Clemens -- and his colossally-awful lawyer, Rusty Hardin -- for their spectacular work. Well done, gentlemen, well done indeed!
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Nobody cares. I just looked up the Clemens expose book on Amazon and it does not even rank in the top 100 of all sports books. It ranks number 46 among all baseball books. Even "The Natural"written a half-century ago is outselling it. In an era in sports where it seems that the use of PEDs was the rule rather than the exception, to single out one man the way the media has over the past year and a half is absurd. For the last 16 months, the federal government has spent millions investigating whether a baseball pitched cheated while striking out other players, meanwhile alleged terrorsists who may have had a hand in killing thousands, go free.
Hey Bill, mind if we go ahead and have our to and fro over the stuff that interests us without you holding a vigil in the middle of it?
Bill, you checked the book under the wrong category. It may not have ranked highly under Sports books or Baseball books, but under Drugs and Pharmaceuticals, it was top 5. :)
Bill, you have lost the object of the Federal Governments investigation: It is whether Clemens lied while inder oath both to Federal Investigators and the Committee investigating PED's in sports. The government does NOT care whether he used them or not, they care about whether HE LIED ABOUT USING THEM WHILE UNDER OATH. This is the same as the prosecution of Barry Bonds.
And please don't link lying about the use of PED's and the "terrorists" that are being set "free". The Department of Homeland Security, the Pentagon, and the White House are all fighting outside forces who want to harm this country, while the IRS and the Justice Department are fighting internal forces in this country. There is no similarity between the two!
Because Clemens tried to defend himself against the claims of Mcnamee that makes him stupid according to this clown Calcaterra? What a dumb article written by a complete idiot and this isnt the first one he's written thats been this bad either. I ask the writer of this BS, how would you like him to defend himself? Mcnamee should be responsible for what he said and should not get any kind of protection by the feds, yet more proof the legal system is a joke.
He could have done what Andy Pettite did: say little and move on with his career and reputation intact. And he wouldn't have had to admit to anything that wasn't true (if he didn't actually do steroids, anyway). The same, low-heat result would have occurred if he had simply issued a statement denying drug use and went on his merry way.
More generally speaking, no one gave a rat's ass who McNamee was until Clemens filed his ill-advised lawsuit. Now they do, they know all kinds of sordid details about Clemens, his wife, his affairs, and his relationship with McNamee. All as a result of his lawsuit. Which he has lost in spectacular fashion. Which almost any lawyer would have told him he was going to last year.
So his filing it was a good idea how, exactly?
"More generally speaking, no one gave a rat's ass who McNamee was until Clemens filed his ill-advised lawsuit."
Not true. Everyone knew his name as soon as the Mitchell report came out and he was all over tv. The real crux of the problem and this article is that most people are so judgmental and ignorant that they jump to conclusions based on innuendo and then call it fact. Always remember what happens when one ass-u-mes.....
Lula, if it wasn't for Clemens ill-advised lawsuit against McNamee, McNamee would not be in the public eye right now.
If Clemens had acted like Pettite and gone on his merry way and let it pass as a BS story, it would have gone away. But he has continued to keep it in the papers and therefore McNamee is still in the news.
A very wise man once told me "Sometimes it's better to turn your back and walk away than it is to stay and fight" and "It's better to keep your mouth shut and have people think you are an idiot than open your mouth and remove all doubt".
Clemens is a fraud...
Clemens is one of the most malodorous figures in professional sports history. It is the nature of Baseball for its heros to fall the farthest and Roger is the poster boy for that issue.
While McGuire isn't fundamentally better at least he kept his mouth shut and refuse to create a furor like Clemens did.
My grandmother always told me, "The more you stir ****, the worse it stinks!"
Malodorous? Faulting a guy who decides to defend himself? We owe Clemens a debt for some great entertainment. And some great baseball.
But please, if you can't even spell McGwire, don't join the conversation. You should have followed his example.
Darrell's grandmother summed this all up nicely, end of story, can we please move on already!
Yes, please do move on. The rest of us will keep it going for as long as it interests us.
Clemens certainly lied and did so under oath. For him to win a defamation suit he would need to have stellar character. Clearly that is not the case and while his suit was dismissed on a technicality, I believe that the judge would have dismissed it outright had it gone further. His ugly character and personal life were exposed. Hubris is a dangerous thing. It destroys lives.
So glad you are so certain. Care to show the rest of us your PROOF?
And you know nothing about the law- you do not need to have stellar character- you need to prove the elements of the tort. Plenty of people without "stellar character" have one defamation suits. It IS harder for people in the public arena though, because they generally have to prove not only that there was a lie, but that the lie was told maliciously and intentionally, which can get tricky.
Actually, since I have been a practicing litigator for over 12 years, I think I do know plenty about the law. One does have to prove that their character was defamed in order to win a defamation suit. If one's character is lousy, then there was nothing to defame. Thus, one does have to have stellar character. The author of this article seems to agree with me that it was very plain and clear that Clemens lied - and more than once. How about the one about his cleaning lady who doesn't speak english (only she did and does).
Yankees Suck.
OH, that's what this article is about? And here I thought it was about NOT THE YANKEES. Thank you for explaining it.
Anyway, yeah, it was obvious from the start that the only reason for the defamation lawsuit against McNamee was because Clemens chose the tactic of "The best defense is a good offense". Unfortunately, in this case he was doing nothing but bluffing, and now, just like the author said, people will look at McNamee and assume he was telling the truth.
On a personal note, both McNamee and Clemens are pathetic, but Clemens more so.
Arcex, I would change one thing you said. Instead of "On a personal note, both McNamee and Clemens are pathetic, but Clemens more so." I would say that "On a personal note, both McNamee and Clemens are pathetic, but Clemens had more to lose by bringing this suite, and so was the bigger fool.
Scott H- just because the system ruled against your man gives you no right to say the legal system stinks. Let's hope when people are known to have misremembered they receive a worthy end. Maybe he should contact Ozzie and ask him for any suggestions he might have on next moves. Hopefully it would be, shut up and go away please.
The first sentence of this post is McCarveresque. No offense, Craig, just sounds like something he might say.
Yeah, it does, doesn't it? Eh, they're not all gems.
Clemens is a liar and a cheat and a di%#. I can forgive these guys for doing what they did that was not against the rules. What I cannot tolerate is a guy so filled with himself that he wants to place himself above everybody else. I try not to wish ill on people but if Pete Rose is not in the Hall - neither should this guy be. When he admits he lied - I may reconsider. I cannot believe he is ot getting better advice - I think he is but just ignoring it - the ego again. I wonder how his marriage is doing now that he has been found to be a cheater on her too. Eventually when someone puts the glory on themself they die by the same sword.
16 months later and no indictment, never mind conviction. Doesn't sound like an open and shut case to me. In reading all this it seems Clemens' crime was not using PEDs but actually trying to defend himself against the charges of another. Shame on him. And he thought he lived in America.
He does live in America, and in America even jerks like Brian McNamee have freedom of speech. Which is why defamation cases are so hard to establish, becuase by definition, they are to sanction people for speech.
Which is fine if people are speaking malicious lies. If they're not, however, or even if it's a close call, the system is very right (in my view) to make proving such a case so hard. Clemens knew that when he decided to file this suit, and he very well should have known that by doing so he put his character in play.
"In reading all this it seems Clemens' crime was not using PEDs but actually trying to defend himself against the charges of another."
Nope, his real crime was in slandering and defaming a guy, throwing his wife under a bus, and tampering with witnesses all the while trying to save his own pathetic skin.
Rofer Clemens is nothing, and now everyone kinows it.
Gee whiz Tired & Old, these same congresmen stand up in congress and lie with impunity about things that really matter to this country, not whether or not something happened in baseball.
There seems to be a little disconnect from reality here.
Well, it's the same as you can throw trash all over your room, but if some stranger does it, I bet you gonna kick his arse.
Congressmen lie in congress are perfectly fine, it's when others do it they get all flipped out.
Roger Clemens is a liar, a cheat, and an enormous fraud. Now the whole world knows it, for true. To paraphrase his own words, today is the day he truly became a Yankee.
Hey Lisa, let us not forget that if he in fact used PED's (seems likely, but not proven) he did so for a team called the Boston Red Sox. In fact he had some of his greatest years there.
You can't be that ignorant, BigBBF. McNamee asserted that Clemens began using PEDs in Toronto, and apparently it was in reaction to Dan Duquette's "twilight of his career" comment. There isn't a single shred of evidence and no one anywhere has claimed that Clemens used in Boston.
Clemens made a problem into a HUGE problem with his holier-than-thou attitude. If he'd owned what he did, provided even the lamest of explanations (like some others have), then moved on, we wouldn't be here. But instead, he is so convinced of his greatness, indeed even his superiority to us schmoes, that he dismisses the allegations out of hand. How dare we, the public, hold him to a standard of conduct that the commonfolk have to live by? He's Roger Freaking Clemens! He's above life's rules. Professional athletes don't have to grow up. Professional athletes are, mostly, immature when compared with regular people. We saw it again last night when ManRam "apologized" without saying what he was apologizing for. And he got away with it because our expectations for professional athletes is very, very low. YOU try that at YOUR 50,000-a-year job when YOU violate a major rule. It doesn't fly in the real world.