When Roger Clemens expressed his stance on getting into Hall of Fame: "I could give a rat’s a**"
Arguably one of the best pitchers in the MLB, Roger Clemens will forever be marked by his past PED usage. It ruined his chances of getting inducted into the Hall of Fame. During his talks with reporters during a Houston conference in 2008, Clemens' views were quite clear on the matter.
Clemens said that he didn't play baseball for 24 years just to get inducted into the Hall of Fame. He continued by saying that he couldn't care less about not getting inducted.
“You think that I played my career because I’m worried about the damn Hall of Fame?” Clemens said then. “I could give a rat’s a** about that also.
"If you have a vote and it’s because of this, you keep your vote. I don’t need the Hall of Fame to justify that I put my butt on the line and I worked my tail off.”
Whether this is true or not depends on who you ask, but Clemens was quite firm in his angry retort.
The PED scandal tainted his record, not just by its nature, but by the way in which Clemens handled the situation.
Roger Clemens was tried for lying to Congress
When the PED scandal broke and the Mitchell Report was presented to Congress, Roger Clemens had to testify about PED usage in his MLB career.
Former prosecutor Mike Attanasio had quite a few things to say to Forbes about Roger Clemens' testimony under oath:
“Roger got hauled up to Congress, with no immunity, the Fifth Amendment completely at his disposal and gave his testimony.
"The price of all of that, for sticking up for yourself and daring to challenge the Mitchell Report, was to be indicted by a federal grand jury and have to risk your freedom to prove your innocence."
Roger Clemens after joining the 300 win club, 2003 https://t.co/Y1yTHTJ9DK
Committee Chairman Henry Waxman asked the Justice Department to investigate the matter of whether Clemens had lied under oath:
"The committee referred Mr. Clemens to the Justice Department because we had significant doubts about the truthfulness of his testimony in 2008," Waxman said. "The decision whether Mr. Clemens committed perjury is a decision the jury had to make and I respect its decision."
Roger Clemens pitching in his 20 strikeout game, April 29. 1986. https://t.co/tBQ3oAcEu9
The jury found that Clemens had not lied under oath. They were not impressed with some of the testimony against him, some of which they felt was akin to a personal vendetta of sorts. In a decision that was expected to take days to reach, they came back with a not guilty verdict after several hours.
Although this didn't settle the matter for fans, it was the end of the legal enquiry.