Bottle rocket

So Rawga Clemens showed up on 60 Minutes tonight. It's his first interview since the Mitchell Report and blah blah blah -- you know the story.

A month ago, a Senator stood up and called one of the greatest pitchers to ever walk the face of the earth a cheater. His response?

Nothing.

In the report, Rawga's former trainer describes personally injecting Clemens with testosterone while he played for Toronto. In a season the Rocket started 6-6, and then -- miraculously! -- turned into the second coming of Bob Gibson and went 14-0 down the stretch and picked up another Cy Young. How does Rawga respond? What does he fire back with?

Nothing.

Oh, he let a few nuggets slip out. "My family is taking it worse than I am." (That's Barry Bonds 101: throw your kids between you and the press.) "I am disappointed that my 25 years in public life have apparently not afforded me the benefit of the doubt." (25 years in public life in which you started fistfights and threw bats at people during the World Series and were well known as the most fanatically competitive human alive -- why are we not supposed to believe you cheated?) "I plan to publicly answer all of those questions in the appropriate time in the appropriate way." (A prerecorded interview over a month later with a self-described "friend" of yours. Riiiight.)

And now: the interview, finally. What does he say? Not much of anything. "I didn't do it, no, really, you gotta believe me" is what it boils down to. It wasn't steroids -- it was B-12. Barry Bonds 201: it wasn't steroids that bad, bad man gave me, it was [innocuous substance].

Of course, that same bad, bad man accused Andy Pettitte -- Rawga's BFF -- of cheating, and the Beak copped to it...in a squirrelly, quarter-assed kind of way. But he did admit that the Bad Man was telling the truth. So...he lied about Clemens, but told the truth about Pettitte? Why?

Clemens: The cases are "totally separate." Which is...actually not an answer.

He is, however, outraged that people would "assume" the report is true. "It's hogwash for people even to assume this," he bleated. "Twenty-four, twenty-five years, Mike. You'd think I'd get an inch of respect. An inch."

Ah, there's the Barry Bonds AP course: "I'm telling you the truth. And you know it's the truth because I said it's the truth and I'm very famous. What's your fucking problem?"

But hey -- maybe it is unfair to Clemens. He does deserve a chance to defend himself. I mean, we can't just take the word of a steroid dealer over the word of someone who isn't a proven steroid dealer. He should take that douchebag to court! Sue his ass! Then the truth will come out.

Oh, wait -- I detect the lamest excuse in the history of lame excuses on deck...

"Should I sue? Well, yeah, let me exhaust -- let me, let me just spend... [gestures, as though peeling off dollar bills]."

Yes, that's right: he would sue, but it's just too darn expensive. Those lawyers don't grow on trees.

Go. Fuck. Yourself.

Am I hallucinating, or did you get paid something in the region of $80 million in salary...for just the last four seasons? Good lord, how expensive is litigation? Fuck, just take him on one of those stupid courtroom shows they show between Maury Povich and Montell Williams, they'll pay your litigation costs!

And maybe it's costly, but come on, man -- we're talking about protecting the good name of a legacy you built for a quarter of a century. That's not worth spending some of that ungodly fortune?

"I don't know if I can defend myself," he whined. "I think people -- a lot of people have already made their decisions."

Yeah, dipshit. When you offer up nothing in your defense, hide behind your family, issue blank statements via your agents and lawyers, drop out of sight and don't even talk to anyone for a month, people have lots and lots of time to make up their minds. And then you have the nerve to get angry when people just don't assume that you're telling the truth.

Die in a fire, Clemens.

You cheater.

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