Fat Billy Goes To Trump's Texas Whine-A-Thon/Public Therapy Session

Trump shouts out Roger Clemens, who was in attendance at the Trump rally in Texas pic.twitter.com/9fec4CZgUZ

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 30, 2022

More here.

G67: Red Sox 2, Astros 1

Red Sox - 001 000 010 - 2  7  0
Astros  - 000 000 100 - 1  6  1

Drew Pomeranz and Mookie Betts led the Red Sox to victory. Good Pomeranz showed up tonight (6.1-4-1-3-4, 97) and Betts scored both runs, the second one coming on his 12th home run of the year, in the eighth inning. Betts also threw out a runner at the plate in the sixth.

Update: The Yankees (38-27) lost again, their fourth defeat in a row. Boston (38-29) is now only 1 GB!

Betts walked with one out in the third. Pedroia singled to right, and Betts went to third. Xander Bogaerts struck out, but Mitch Moreland singled to left, scoring Betts. Mike Fiers's wild pitch moved the runners to second and third and Andrew Benintendi walked. But the bases were left loaded when Chris Young grounded out to shortstop.

Pomeranz was helped out by double plays in the first and fourth innings. And in the sixth, after Pomeranz issued two-out walks to George Springer and Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa singled to right. But Betts gunned down Springer at the plate.

There was also a bit of a scare in the seventh. Brian McCann homered off Pomeranz, tying the game at 1-1. Joe Kelly relieved Pomeranz. Yuli Gurriel doubled to right center and went to third on Alex Bregman's groundout. Derek Fisher was intentionally walked and Norichika Aoki pinch-hit for Jake Marisnick. It was a tense at-bat - ball, ball (Fisher stole second), called strike, swinging strike, foul, foul, ball, foul - before Aoki lined out to third, where Josh Rutledge had to leap to snag the ball.

Fiers (7-5-1-2-4, 97) was pulled after seven and Will Harris took over, facing the top of Boston's order in the eighth. Betts crushed Harris's first pitch over the fence in left.

In the bottom of the eighth, Altuve doubled off Matt Barnes with one out. Barnes then walked Correa on four pitches. Altuve stole third, but Evan Gattis grounded into a 6-4-3 double play. Craig Kimbrel retired the side in order in the ninth.

Drew Pomeranz / Mike Fiers

Betts, RF
Pedroia, 2B
Bogaerts, SS
Moreland, 1B
Benintendi, LF
Young, DH
Bradley, CF
Rutledge, 3B
Vazquez, C

The Astros (45-22) lead the American League West by 11 games. Since winning 11 games in a row (May 25-June 5), Houston has lost six of nine games. Fiers is the team's only pitcher from the Opening Day starting rotation to have avoided the disabled list.

How do you solve a problem like Pablo? That's what the Red Sox are wondering as Mr. Sandoval turned in yet another putrid night at the plate. Rob Bradford writes that "the Sandoval signing is trending toward becoming one of the worst in franchise history". In 158 games with Boston, Sandoval is batting .236 with a .646 OPS.

Dave Cameron at Fangraphs calls Sandoval "the most glaring example in baseball of a sunk cost":

He still swings at everything — he has the fifth-highest O-Swing% [percentage of pitches a batter swings at outside the strike zone] of any hitter with 100+ plate appearances — and allows pitchers to get him out on pitches out of the zone. Only 38% of the pitches he’s been thrown this year have been strikes, the lowest rate in the majors, so Sandoval is currently swinging at balls and swinging through strikes. That is a bad combination. ...

He has no trade value, and is not likely to ever be someone the team could move for any real return. Sandoval's presence on the roster is solely about whether he can help the team win, and right now, the answer looks to be mostly no. ...

Dave Dombrowski said this week that the organization doesn't feel [Rafael] Devers is quite ready yet, but some of that probably involves the team not yet making the decision that it's time to cut Sandoval and give his roster spot to someone more useful.

They should be there, though. Sandoval looks like a below-replacement level player ... the Pablo Sandoval experiment failed, and it's not going to be any more successful by letting him get at-bats that could go to a better player.

More bad news: Roger Clemens will be filling in for Joe Castiglione on the radio broadcast tonight. Awful Announcing wonders "what WEEI has to gain" since Red Sox fans "seem to largely hate him at worst, and are pretty indifferent to him at best. ... [I]t sure seems to be pretty significant trolling of a large segment of their Red Sox-fan audience."

I won't listen to even one second of Fat Billy, but I am curious about how it goes, since Clemens was not known for his silver tongue during his playing days. So if anyone has the stomach to tune in, feel free to report in the comments.

Mistrial Declared On Day 2 Of Clemens's Case

New York Times:

The federal judge presiding over Roger Clemens's perjury trial declared a mistrial Thursday, saying the government allowed the jury to hear inadmissible testimony that prejudiced it against Clemens.

"He is entitled to a fair trial and, in my view, he can't get it now, and that was caused by the government," the judge, Reggie Walton of United States District Court, said.

The prosecutors left the courthouse without speaking to reporters. Judge Walton set a hearing date of Sept. 2 for them to reveal if they plan to retry the case, which was only two days into testimony.

Associated Press:

Walton interrupted the prosecution's playing of a video from Clemens' 2008 testimony before Congress and had the jury removed from the courtroom. ... Walton was angered that in the video prosecutors showed the jury, congressman Elijah Cummings referred to Pettitte's conversation with his wife.

"I think that a first-year law student would know that you can't bolster the credibility of one witness with clearly inadmissible evidence," Walton said.

He said it was the second time that prosecutors had gone against his orders — the other being an incident that happened during opening arguments on Wednesday ...

Unbelievable.

United States vs. William R. Clemens Begins Today

Jury selection in the case of United States vs. William R. Clemens begins today in Washington, DC. Opening statements are expected early next week.

Fat Billy is charged with six felony counts (Obstruction of Congress, Perjury, False Statements) for telling (under oath) a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in February 2008 that he had never used performance-enhancing drugs during his baseball career.

Jim Litke, Associated Press:

After being implicated in MLB's Mitchell Report, Clemens could have denied using performance-enhancers in a forum of his own choosing and quietly slipped into retirement while the debated raged on ...

Instead, Clemens begged Congress to make a federal case out of it. ...

"Somebody is trying to break my spirit in this room," Clemens said during testimony that February day three years ago, refusing to so much as glance at Brian McNamee, his former trainer and principal accuser. "And they're not going to break my spirit." ...

McNamee's version of their decade together has already made a sizable dent in his former employer's wallet, mostly to cover lawyer Rusty Hardin's legal fees, which could charitably be described as throwing good money after bad.

Under Hardin's counsel, Clemens played a secretly recorded phone conversation for reporters in which he came off sounding like a budding Mafioso, then stormed out of his own hastily arranged news conference because he didn't like the line of questioning. Then there was Hardin's veiled threat against federal agent and investigator Jeff Novitzky -- "If he ever messes with Roger, Roger will eat his lunch." And just for good measure, a defamation lawsuit against McNamee that was effectively laughed out of court. ...

McNamee has come off as neither a sympathetic figure nor a trustworthy one ... [but his story] has never changed.

"I told the investigators I injected three people -- two of whom I know confirmed my account," he said then, referring to Clemens' teammates, Pettitte and Chuck Knoblauch. "The third is sitting at this table."

T.J. Quinn, ESPN:

During a pre-trial hearing in U.S. District Court on Tuesday, defense attorney Rusty Hardin said Clemens' longtime personal trainer, Brian McNamee, was worried that a rape investigation involving him would lead the Yankees to fire him as their strength coach. Their argument is that [in 2001] McNamee took syringes and gauze pads with Clemens' DNA and tainted it with performance-enhancing drugs with the intention of blackmailing Clemens into giving him a job. ...

Prosecutors argued that telling the jury that McNamee was the subject of a rape investigation would be prejudicial, and U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton said he was inclined to agree, although he did not issue a ruling. ...

It also was established on Tuesday that Clemens "is not a scholar of linguistics."

That point was put forward by one of his attorneys, Michael Attanasio, to make the case that when his client famously said Andy Pettitte "misremembered" a conversation about human growth hormone, he actually meant that he "misheard," ...

Clemens stared ahead without taking notes like he did at previous proceedings and walked so quickly out of the courthouse, surrounded by media, that his attorney called for him to slow down.

Juliet Macur, Times:

"In 1999 or 2000, I had a conversation with Roger Clemens in which Roger told me that he had taken human growth hormone," [Andy] Pettitte said in [his] affidavit, a potentially pivotal declaration if spoken before a jury.

"Everybody knows that Andy's a goody-two-shoes that will have a big impact on the jury," said Alan M. Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor and celebrity lawyer. "He has no motives to lie, no conceivable reason to testify against his best friend. So, if I'm a defense attorney, I would try to get him off the stand as soon as possible to minimize his impact." ...

Peter Keane, a professor at Golden Gate University School of Law, said Pettitte would be seen by the jury "as a very reluctant witness who just can't lie under oath, even for a close friend ... I think Clemens is in big trouble."

Already In Camp

Jonathan Papelbon, Ryan Kalish, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Daniel Nava and Lenny DiNardo are already working out at the Red Sox complex in Fort Myers, Florida.

Brian Bonner was laid off last month from his job as Champ, the mascot for the Yankees' AAA team (Scranton/Wilkes-Barre). He has brought a lawsuit against the team, claiming that it violated worker protection laws, classifying him as a "marketing and community relations manager" to avoid paying him overtime (sometimes 80 hours per week).

U.S. District Court Judge Sterling Johnson has rebuffed Fat Billy's attempt to get Brian McNamee's defamation suit against him thrown out on jurisdictional grounds. While Johnson ruled that Clemens can be sued in New York, any further activity in the case is on hold until mid-September because the TCM will be busy this summer defending himself from criminal charges (including lying to a congressional committee) in a federal trial set to begin in early July.

Fat Billy: "Not Guilty"

Roger Clemens appeared in federal court yesterday and pleaded not guilty to felony charges of perjury and obstruction of Congress.

At the hearing, "the prosecution handed over to Clemens' attorneys a 34-page 'master index' and 12 computer discs of evidence prior to the hearing, including all of the testimony of witnesses who appeared before the grand jury. Also being turned over to the defense are memoranda of the FBI's interviews with potential witnesses."

Dana Milbank, Washington Post: "The clerk read out the case, 'United States of America versus William Clemens, a.k.a. Roger Clemens' - as if the defendant were hiding behind a nefarious alias."

Jury selection is set for April 5, 2011.

Feds: Clemens To Be Indicted For Perjury

New York Times:

Federal authorities have decided to indict Roger Clemens on charges of making false statements to Congress about his use of performance-enhancing drugs, according to two people briefed on the matter.

An announcement is expected shortly.

The indictment comes nearly two and half years after Clemens and his former trainer Brian McNamee testified under oath at a hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform [February 2008], directly contradicting each other about whether Clemens had used the banned substances.

Craig Calcaterra, NBC Sports:

Following Clemens' testimony, Congress asked the Department of Justice to investigate Clemens' statements, saying in a letter to the Attorney General "that significant questions have been raised about Mr. Clemens's truthfulness." Among those questions were, according to the Committee, "seven sets of assertions made by Mr. Clemens in his testimony that appear to be contradicted by other evidence before the committee or implausible." Specifically:

* Clemens' testimony that he had never taken performance-enhancing drugs;

* His statement that McNamee injected him with the painkiller lidocaine;

* His statement that team trainers gave him pain injections;

* His statement that he received many vitamin B-12 injections;

* His statement that he never discussed HGH with Brian McNamee;

* His statement that he was not at then-teammate Jose Canseco's home during a party which took place in early June 1998; and

* His statement that he was never told about George Mitchell's request to speak to him prior to the release of the Mitchell Report. ...

[A]n accusation does not necessarily make a conviction likely, especially in a perjury case, especially in this perjury case. Many of Clemens' statements are exceedingly difficult to square with known facts and common sense. At the same time, many of the witnesses against Clemens already face credibility issues ...

In the meantime, Roger Clemens has a date with federal agents, a finger print ink pad and a mug shot photographer. Because he is about to be criminally charged.

McNamee Files Defamation Suit Against Clemens

Brian McNamee filed a defamation suit against Roger Clemens in the Eastern District of New York on Friday, claiming that Clemens waged a "well-financed and orchestrated campaign" against McNamee to "inflict severe emotional distress and pain and suffering" and ruin his reputation.

Thursday's Daily News noted, referring to two of Clemens's lawyers, Lanny Breuer and Rusty Hardin:

During a Feb. 7, 2008 press conference, Breuer called McNamee "a sad, tragic, obsessed man," while Hardin referred to him as "troubled." The following day, Feb. 8, Hardin called McNamee "a colossal liar."

Clemens Perjury Update

Daily News, July 15, 2009:

The grand jury believed to be investigating Roger Clemens for perjury has issued a subpoena to the owner of a now-defunct Houston-area gym [Kelly Blair of 1-on-1 Elite Personal Fitness] linked to the distribution of steroids and human growth hormone. ...

"It continues to confirm my belief that it is only a matter of time - and maybe not that much time - until Clemens is indicted," [Richard] Emery [one of the attorneys representing Brian McNamee] said. "I would assume they are moving forward. The point is they have gone well beyond the McNamee allegations and are looking at other evidence." ...

Clemens' attorney Rusty Hardin did not return a call for comment. ...

Blair, a football and track star in the 1980s at Deer Park High School near Houston, is related by marriage to Andy Pettitte. ...

Daily News, July 17, 2009:

On the first Tuesday in August [August 4, which is also Clemens's 47th birthday!], former gym owner Kelly Blair expects to testify to a grand jury in Washington D.C. that is believed to be investigating Roger Clemens for perjury, and likely will be asked about having arranged a transfer of human growth hormone to the father of Yankee pitcher Andy Pettitte ...

Blair said he has not met Clemens, and has not talked to any of Clemens' representatives, and did not supply Clemens with human growth hormone. ...

In his press conference, Blair admitted that he had used performance-enhancing drugs.

"I've taken enough to kill an elephant," he said.

Schadenfreude 88 (A Continuing Series)

Ken Davidoff, Newsday:

On a long, long day at Yankee Stadium, the comic highlight occurred in the middle of the first inning, when public-address announcer Paul Olden invited fans to move up to the field- and main-level seats.

A few lax security guards didn't act quickly enough, though, and before you knew it, SOME COMMONERS HAD CROSSED THE MOAT!!! into the infamous Legends Suites.

Look out! The revolution had begun!

But the trespassers soon trudged back into the field- level seats last night, and in short time, they smiled as Stadium employees handed them menus by which they could order popcorn for $7 and a smoked chicken Caesar wrap for $9. ...

Mark Hale, Post:

The announced attendance was 45,143, but the actual count was probably closer to 10,000. After the top of the first inning, the Yankees invited fans to sit in the lower levels -- allowing them to view the putrid offense with a keener eye.

Anthony Mccarron, Daily News:

Even with an extra five hours and 26 minutes to think about it, the Yankees still could not figure out how to hit an unfamiliar pitcher. ...

It was the first time the Yanks have been shut out at their new home and they scored only seven runs in the series.

The loss to the lowly Nats, which meant that the worst team in baseball - by far - took two of three games from the Yanks, plunged Joe Girardi into a funk. ...

Jay Greenburg, Post:

The best rotation money can buy has thrown the AL's third-fewest innings, part of the reason why a bullpen one would never want to overwork has only the league's 10th best ERA ...

The good news is that in a season ending today, the Yankees would be in the postseason ...

"I had a good rhythm, just sometimes started drifting," said Chamberlain, who said he has to do better, then said he thinks he's doing fine. We liked the first answer more.

Bill Madden, Daily News:

They waited 5-1/2 hours in the rain to play a baseball game at Yankee Stadium Thursday night, and if you didn't know better, it could have been because the Yankees wanted no part of Craig Stammen.

It mattered not that the Washington Nationals' rookie righthander was not exactly a household name. Or even that, with his 5.86 ERA for his first five major league starts, he pretty much symbolized this desolate Washington team that is keeping pace with the '62 Mets as baseball's worst ever. All that mattered was the Yankees had never seen him before ...

Joked one veteran scout Thursday night: "I don't know, if I were a team playing the Yankees in the postseason, I'd call up three pitchers from the minor leagues - any three pitchers - and take my chances."

***

Jeane MacIntosh, Post:

A golf-resort developer put nearly two dozen NHL stars on ice -- taking millions they had invested with him and blowing it on parties packed with porn stars, hookers and his baseball buddies, including ex-Yankees Roger Clemens and Reggie Jackson, according to two explosive lawsuits filed yesterday. ...

Jowdy got rowdy, squandering their cold cash on "lavish parties" that included "various female porn stars, escorts, strippers [and] party girls" to impress Clemens, Jackson, banned star Pete Rose and ESPN announcer Joe Morgan ...

The suits also allege that Jowdy:

* Put a Clemens gal pal named Adrian Moore, described as a "regular party attendee who was close to Clemens," on his payroll "as a personal favor" to the former Yankee Cy Young winner. ...

A call to Clemens' business manager was not returned. In statement sent to TMZ.com, Morgan said he "never went to any of those parties."

Well, we know how faulty Morgan's memory can be.

Talkin' Loud And Sayin' Nothing

Roger Clemens is back in the news -- appearing on ESPN radio yesterday morning and denying (yet again) every single drug accusation against him.

Clemens is fighting back against the information in the just-published "American Icon: The Fall of Roger Clemens and the Rise of Steroids in America's Pastime", a book written by a quartet of Daily News reporters. (The book has already won an Associated Press Sports Editors award for Best Investigative Reporting.)

Mike Lupica, Daily News:

To the end, Roger Clemens wants you to believe his version of things as much as he believes it himself.

Clemens took a whole year off from telling his story but was back at it Tuesday on the "Mike and Mike" show on ESPN Radio. The story hasn't changed very much ... referring to "American Icon," Clemens said, "I've seen excerpts from the book and they're completely false."

He didn't say which false excerpts he'd read. But then once you get Clemens off his talking points, almost everything becomes a brain buster.

Gene Grabowski, Billy's latest PR man (his third since the Mitchell Report was released), told ESPN radio that he knew Clemens was not lying because he "looked him in the eye".

There's not much to report from the radio interview. It's the same as before: everyone else everywhere is lying, but Roger is telling the truth. I did love Billy's comment that he'd never use drugs because "our family has a history of heart conditions. ... My stepdad died of a heart attack".

I have not seen it quoted anywhere, but a SoSHer said he heard Clemens say he had his son watch one of his MLB drug tests so the boy could see how "evasive" it was. I assume Clemens meant "invasive".

Schadenfreude 75 (A Continuing Series)

A Schadenfreude/Fat Billy two-fer!


Teri Thompson and Michael O'Keeffe, Daily News:

Alex Rodriguez was an insecure prima donna who made a clubhouse attendant load his toothbrush with toothpaste after every game in his three seasons with the Texas Rangers, a new book charges. ...

Rodriguez also turned off teammates by bragging about wild nights with strippers - and by making clumsy passes at other players' wives and girlfriends. ...

[Author Selena] Roberts also details Rodriguez's obsession with teammate Derek Jeter. Players who accompanied A-Rod to clubs said his favorite pickup line was "Who's hotter, me or Derek Jeter?"

***

CI's go-to line:

What are your hopes? What are your dreams?

***

Teri Thompson and Michael O'Keeffe, Daily News:

Alex Rodriguez wasn't the only player in the Yankee clubhouse who suffered from "man boobs," an embarrassing side effect of steroid use.

According to "American Icon," a book by the Daily News sports investigative team that will be released on May 12, Roger Clemens also sprouted breasts as a result of anabolic steroid use. ...

"The medical term was gynecomastia, but around the clubhouse they called them "b---- t---" or "man boobs" - and heaven help the player who sprouted them in the middle of his career and then took his shirt off in the locker room," the Daily News reporters wrote in "American Icon." "Roger Clemens had man boobs, and he must have been embarrassed because he was often the first Yankee out of the shower and the first to get dressed after the game."

"Another Significant Step Towards Jail For Clemens"

New York Times:

Federal authorities investigating Roger Clemens on perjury charges have found performance-enhancing substances on the drug paraphernalia that his former trainer said he used to inject Clemens, according to people briefed on the case.

Richard Emery, Brian McNamee's lawyer:

I assumed, and I am not surprised, that the tests were positive for both DNA and for performance-enhancing drugs, because that's what Brian said all along, and there's not much doubt that Brian's been telling the truth. The confirmation of that fact, once again, just seems to me to be another significant step towards jail for Clemens.

Rusty Hardin, Clemens's lead lawyer:

Do you really think McNamee was going to fabricate this stuff and not make sure there were substances on there? The fact is Roger never used steroids or H.G.H.

Jennifer L. Mnookin, a professor of law at U.C.L.A.:

All that these tests can do is show the presence of biological materials. They can't tell you how, why or when.

McNamee:

The needles I gave the government were used to inject Clemens with steroids in either July or August of 2001. The place was his apartment, which is located around 90th Street and First Avenue in Manhattan. It was when Clemens was pitching for the Yankees. That day, he laid out the drugs, dropped his trousers and I did as he asked, that was, inject him with steroids. ... Yes, sometimes it was in his apartment. Sometimes it was in the Jacuzzi at Yankee Stadium.

Clemens continues to insist the sun rises in the west.

Clemens DNA Linked To Syringes

Hummina, hummina, hummina ...

New York Post:

Scientific tests have linked Roger Clemens's DNA to blood in syringes that a personal trainer says he used to inject the former star pitcher with performance-enhancing drugs, according to two sources familiar with the investigation. ...

Yesterday, Rusty Hardin, Clemens's Houston-based defense attorney, said the DNA tests "won't matter at all."

"It will still be evidence fabricated by McNamee," Hardin said. "I would be dumbfounded if any responsible person ever found this to be reliable or credible evidence in any way."

McNamee Meets With Feds As Indictment Of Clemens Looms

We haven't been paying much attention to Fat Billy lately, but the Feds have.

Rick Morrissey, Chicago Tribune (also at the Herald):

In his hubris, Roger Clemens probably thought all of this eventually would go away.

He would swear to tell the whole truth before Congress, be as earnest as his constitution would allow and hope his seven Cy Young Awards would be more eloquent than he ever could be.

But it isn't going away. Federal prosecutors are tightening the screws like a compulsive carpenter. They're putting together a perjury case against him, and they're sending out invitations to the party ...

[I'm] intrigued by what it must feel like to be pursued the way Clemens is being pursued by the feds, especially when you've been a star most of your life. Fear doesn't seem to be Clemens' natural response to anything. ...

His supporters will say there's no fear when you know you've done nothing wrong. The rest of us will say there's no fear when you've spent your life getting your way. It's the only explanation for his refusal to give up this charade.

Brian McNamee, one of FB's former trainers, spent five hours on Friday with Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Butler (and FBI investigators), answering questions about his involvement in Clemens's drug use.

Some Fat Billy News, Barely

Mindy McCready is denying a report from Inside Edition claiming she ended her relationship with Roger Clemens because Fat Billy would not marry her. She says Clemens is

one of the most wonderful men I've ever known. ... He treated me like a princess. ... We never had a meeting in secret. We went on vacations together. We went to Palm Springs. We went to Las Vegas, New York City.

Naturally, Clemens continues to deny the affair ever took place:

I repeat once again, it simply did not happen.

Yankees Never Mentioned Torre In Stadium's Closing Ceremonies

Disgraceful. The Yankee organization touts itself as classy and professional, but I prefer to judge it on its actions, which on Sunday resembled those of a petulant child.

Jack Curry, New York Times:

Four World Series titles and 12 consecutive playoff appearances were not enough to merit Joe Torre a mention in Sunday's closing ceremonies at Yankee Stadium. Since Torre was as major part of the Yankees' success since 1996, it was a glaring omission. ...

If the Yankees had simply flashed an image of Torre on the scoreboard and detailed his achievements, it likely would have received a raucous ovation. The Yankees would have looked dignified for doing the right thing in honoring a manager who was a vital part of their Stadium's history. Instead, the Yankees erased Torre's name from their history, at least for Sunday night.

Yankees media relations director Jason Zillo said the omission was unintentional: "A lot of great Yankees weren't mentioned."

The ceremonies saluted Jesse Barfield -- but not Torre.

***

Roger Clemens -- who pitched for the Yankees for six years and has expressed a desire to wear an NY cap when he is inducted into the Hall of Fame -- was also absent from the ceremonies. Which is more hilarious than disgraceful.

Post:

Estranged former Yankee Roger Clemens was "heartbroken" when his former team left him out of Sunday night's Stadium-farewell festivities, which included a video montage honoring the Bronx Bombers' greatest pitchers - but not him, a relative told The Post yesterday.

Clemens was sitting at home in hurricane-ravaged Texas, in front of a battery-operated television on his living room couch, when the team delivered a final crushing blow to its former star.

Clutching wife Debbie's hand on one side and mother-in-law Jan Wild's on the other, Clemens tuned in to his final team's last home game hoping for some recognition ... [but] the steroid-scandal-scarred Clemens was nowhere to be seen.

Receipts Show Clemens Received HGH From Radomski

Daily News:

Confessed drug supplier Kirk Radomski has provided documentary evidence to the government showing that he shipped drugs to the Texas home of Roger Clemens, who is under investigation for perjury after telling Congress he never used steroids or human growth hormone.

According to sources with close knowledge of the investigation, Radomski has discovered shipping receipts for a package of two kits of human growth hormone that he sent in late 2002 or 2003 to Clemens at the pitcher's palatial mansion in Houston. ...

"I can't imagine that there's any truth to that at all," said [Clemens' lawyer, Rusty] Hardin. "We'll find out one day Roger never received or took the stuff." ...

Sure we will, Rusty. You run along now.

Clemens Doesn't Like Dushbags

The Smoking Gun:

What can a baseball fan learn from a series of e-mails exchanged by Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee, the trainer who has accused the baseball star of using performance-enhancing drugs? Well, Clemens can't spell the words "douchebag" or "lawsuits," uses the word "rocket" in his e-mail address, and signed electronic missives with his uniform number, 22.

"TOUGH ALL DAY"

That's gold, Jerry! Gold!

Viagra Was Rocket Booster

NYDN:

He told little white lies ... and he took little blue pills.

Roger Clemens, whose claims he never took steroids are under federal investigation, has apparently discovered the benefits of another performance-enhancing drug sweeping the sports world - Viagra.

Clemens stashed the clearly marked, diamond-shaped pills in a GNC vitamin bottle in his locker at Yankee Stadium, according to a source familiar with the clubhouse, perhaps keeping the drug undercover to avoid the inevitable wisecracks about all the girlfriends he needed to please.

Clemens wasn't alone. The pitcher, who is believed to have scored the drug from a teammate, joined the burgeoning number of athletes who have turned Vitamin V and its over-the-counter substitutes into one of the hottest drugs in locker rooms. ...

[BALCO founder Victor Conte:] "It's bigger than creatine. It's the biggest product in nutritional supplements." ...

Clemens' lawyer Rusty Hardin did not return a call for comment.

Was Fat Billy eating Viagra "like Skittles"?

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