Clemens makes case to media

Tape played of phone conversation with McNamee

By Barry M. Bloom / MLB.com

01/07/2008 10:03 PM ET

Roger Clemens and his attorney, Rusty Hardin, played a tape on Monday of a 17-minute telephone conversation between himself and Brian McNamee, his former personal trainer, who told the Mitchell Committee and federal investigators that he had injected the right-hander with steroids and human growth hormone during a period from 1998 to 2001.

The tape of the conversation, which was recorded on Friday, was played prior to a much-anticipated press conference in Houston on Monday afternoon.

In it, McNamee did not contradict his statements, but he apologized to Clemens for any pain he had caused him or his family.

"All I did was what I thought was right," said McNamee. "It wasn't right, but I did what I had to do."

McNamee also continuously and emotionally asked Clemens, "What do you want me to do?"

Said Clemens: "I just want the truth to come out. I can't believe what's being said. I'm getting it from all angles. I just need somebody to tell the truth."

McNamee sounded distraught during the conversation.

"I'm in your corner. I don't want this to happen. But I'd also like not to go to jail, too," he said.

"I don't have any money. I have nothing," McNamee said. "I'm not doing a book deal. I got offered seven figures to go on TV. I didn't do it. I didn't take it. I didn't do anything. All I did was what I thought was right -- I never thought it was right, but I thought that I had no other choice, put it that way."

Asked why Clemens never directly answered the "what do you want me to do" question, Hardin, said: "The last thing Roger wanted, just as we did, was any suggestion that we were trying to interfere or coerce a federal witness. So, yeah, all he kept saying (was) nothing. Except you hear him throughout saying, 'Tell the truth.'"

Under state law in New York and Texas, only one party has to give consent for a phone conversation to be taped. In this case, it was Clemens, who was at home. McNamee spoke on a cellular phone.

Hardin said that because McNamee didn't deny Clemens' claims that he never used steroids, it amounted to proof that Clemens was telling the truth. Clemens said McNamee initiated the conversation by sending him an e-mail.

"He said his son was sick and dying. That's why I reached out," Clemens said.

After the tape was played, Clemens took about a dozen questions from reporters before testily ending the session on the subject of the Hall of Fame.

"Do you think I played my career because I'm worried about the damn Hall of Fame?" he told a room filled with many potential voters. "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, and I defy anybody to say I did it by cheating or taking any shortcuts, OK?"

Hardin said the pitcher was willing to testify Jan. 16 to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. McNamee also has agreed, and the pair will have to repeat their assertions under oath on Capitol Hill. Hardin said Clemens will deny steroid use.

"I'm going to Congress and I'm going to tell the truth," Clemens said. "I'm going to tell everything that I know about the situations and steroids and anything else that I have knowledge about, which isn't a lot."

The committee planned to ask Clemens' representatives for the complete recording of the telephone conversation played at the news conference, said Karen Lightfoot, communications director for the panel's chairman, California Democrat Henry Waxman.

Under an agreement with the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Francisco in its investigation of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative for money-laundering and selling drugs illegally, McNamee disclosed information to the feds about Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Chuck Knoblauch and Jason Grimsley. He also provided the same information to Mitchell.

As far as the report is concerned, under McNamee's federal agreement, he can be charged with criminal violations, "including making false statements, which is a felony."

Barry M. Bloom is a national reporter for MLB.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

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