Contradictory stories will be exchanged at Clemens hearings

The baseball player’s lawyer said his client is prepared to testify fully and truthfully.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Whatever Roger Clemens and his accuser have to say for themselves before Congress today, one thing seems certain: Clemens will be no Mark McGwire.

“He is here to talk about the past,” Clemens’ lead lawyer, Rusty Hardin, said Tuesday as he accompanied the seven-time Cy Young Award winner through the hallways of Capitol Hill office buildings.

Clemens was making the rounds one last time, wearing a gray pinstriped suit and squeezing face-to-face meetings into the busy schedules of the members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. He met with five congressmen over a four-hour span Tuesday, on top of the 19 he saw on Thursday and Friday.

“I enjoyed talking with him,” said Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif., who said the discussion included baseball stories and personal accounts about the Sept. 11 attacks. “It’s always good to meet the person who is in the spotlight. ... I told him, ‘This is not a trial.’ ”

But it might very well feel like one when Clemens and his former personal trainer, Brian McNamee, sit at the witness table, and — under oath — offer what will surely be contradictory versions as to whether Clemens has used steroids and human growth hormone during his storied career.

“I couldn’t tell you who’s telling the truth,” Watson said.

The anticipation of the hearing rivals — if not surpasses — that of the hubbub before March 17, 2005, when McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro testified before the same committee in the same wood-paneled House hearing room. McGwire avoided answering questions about steroid use that day by repeatedly saying “I’m not here to talk about the past” — and his reputation has shown no signs of recovery.

“I think Roger’s fully prepared to testify fully and truthfully,” Hardin said. “And one thing we were trying to make clear in all these meetings was that it wasn’t going to be a repeat of 2005. He wasn’t going to sort of parse his words and be careful about what he said. He’d answer any question they had.”

In comparison to Clemens’ personal meetings with lawmakers, McNamee has kept a low profile in the buildup to the hearing. He gave a closed-door deposition under oath last week, two days after Clemens did, and has been waiting until the hearing itself to retell his story.

It’s a story that first publicly surfaced in George Mitchell’s report on drugs in baseball in December. McNamee said in the report that he injected Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone at least 16 times in 1998, 2000 and 2001. Clemens vigorously denied the claims in an aggressive media blitz that included an appearance on “60 Minutes.”

Clemens didn’t have much to say Tuesday as he walked the hallways from appointment to appointment.