I have thus far tried to avoid caring too much about the whole Roger Clemens/Brian McNamee/Mitchell Investigation/Steroids in Baseball story. But now we have bloody gauze pads:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/07/sports/baseball/07clemens.html?th&emc=th
Sensational headline w/ little practical effect, as far as I am concerned. First of all, unless one of these pads or syringes can test positive for both Clemens’ DNA and steroids or HGH, they accomplish nothing other than raise our own individual “ew, yuck” reactions to the surface. And, even if they do test double positive, there are too many questions for that to mean much on a logical level. Chiefly, we have a chain of possession question; how do we know Brian McNamee didn’t somehow tamper with this “evidence”? Even if he didn’t, how do we know his storage facilities were proper for preserving the integrity of the evidence, that there was no accidental tainting of the materials and the evidence was not allowed to degrade or decompose? If this whole saga went all the way to some sort of federal perjury or contempt of Congress trail against Clemens, I can’t imagine a judge would allow this stuff to be entered into evidence. And, if he did, I would hope the Clemens legal team would be able to pretty well kill its usefulness in the minds of the jury.
And, on a less pertinent level, I can’t help wondering who the hell keeps used syringes and bloody guaze pads around for 7 or 8 unnecessary seconds, much less years? Put more succinctly, ew gross!
