I love Spring Training. The smell of freshly cut grass. The warm sun after another cold, gray winter. The beginning of an eight-month voyage with hopes of a World Series title. The stories of Roger Clemens’s butt abscesses.

I watched every minute of the congressional hearing yesterday from thefoulline.com headquarters and came up with a few opinions. First of all, Clemens is a liar. I’m not sure that there will ever be enough evidence to convict him for taking performance-enhancing drugs, but I have little doubt that he took them. I’m not going to get into the “he said, he said” stuff, but let’s take a look at a few highlights and observations.

• Clemens’s legacy is obviously more important to him than his family. He tried to get his wife to take the fall for him. Be a real man and stand up for yourself.
• Congressman Elijah Cummings (D – MD) is my new favorite politician. During the hearings, Cummings owned Clemens. This guy was relentless on him. Unfortunately, with only ten minutes assigned to each congressman, Cummings ran out of time before he could get Clemens’s head to explode. I swear Clemens was three minutes away from pulling a Colonel Jessup and shouting, “You’re goddamn right I ordered the Code Red!” Fortunately for Clemens, the Congressman ran out of time, but it was close.
• Roger Clemens is definitely on Barry Bonds*’s Christmas card list. Clemens is now the MLB poster boy for steroids. This is exactly what Bonds* needed to take the heat off.

Clemens is a lying, cheating scumbag. He may never be prosecuted, and we may never hear the truth from him, but his legacy will be tainted forever. There are no winners here.

Baseball is the greatest sport in the world. Kids playing Little League baseball need to learn from these players’ indiscretions and do their best to emulate the ballplayers that play the game the right way. Unfortunately, an All-Star team could be fielded with the names of players that have put their personal goals and egos ahead of the game. Guys like Bonds, Rose, Sosa, Giambi and now Clemens have done their best to disgrace the game. Society has already given these guys too much attention. It’s time to put these players on the back burner where they belong, and focus on all the great things the game of baseball has to offer.

And I think it’s gonna be a long long time,
‘Til touch down brings me ’round again to find,
I’m not the man they think I am at home,
Oh no no no I’m a rocket man.

Elton John must have known something the rest of the baseball world didn’t when he wrote “Rocket Man.”

Two days ago, Roger Clemens was the greatest right-handed pitcher in Major League history. He is a seven-time Cy Young Award winner, has the record for striking out the most players in a game twice, and has won 354 games. Now he will forever be mentioned in the same breath as Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire as a cheater and a disgrace to the game. The Mitchell Report has been made official and has listed some of the biggest names in the sport as steroid users. An All-Star team could be fielded with the names on the report: Guys like Andy Petitte, Miguel Tejada, and Gary Sheffield were all named, but the most newsworthy name was obviously Clemens.

I guess I should have thought something was up when a 40-year-old man was still throwing 95 MPH and dominating the league, but Clemens was well known for his extensive and excruciating off-season workouts. Of course, being the money-grubbing liar that he is, Clemens denies the accusations, even though the guy that trained both Clemens and Petitte came forward and admitted injecting both players in the butt with steroids.

When the talk of players using steroids came up, it was generally thought that it was the power hitters using them, not the pitchers. Now it’s been reported that there are just as many pitchers as position players on the report.

If Barry Bonds is getting asterisks on his records, I think Clemens should also.

These guys have degraded America’s pastime. I think the only way that they ever see the inside of the Baseball Hall of Fame is if they buy a $10 ticket.