Separating good guys from bad is getting impossible

Is Brian McNamee a good guy or a bad guy? Wednesday may finally provide some answers. AP

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I love this story. I really love it. I can't help it. This has everything that you could possibly ask for in a good yarn. Drama. Mystery. Loyalty and betrayal. A good dose of tragedy. A healthy touch of the absurd. And you know what's best about this real-life struggle between Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee?

You still can't tell the good guys from the bad guys in this thing. Heck, by the time it's over with, there might not be any good guys.

Clemens, the seven-time Cy Young winner, is just hours away from a date with a Congressional committee, where he will stare down his trainer-turned-accuser, McNamee, in what has become a deliciously nasty and incredibly escalating war of wills. Wednesday's public hearing, at 10 a.m. in Room 2154 of the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill, may well turn out to be the defining moment of baseball's Steroid Era.

Forget Barry Bonds and BALCO. Who cares about Mark McGwire and his past, or Rafael Palmeiro and his wagging finger? Jose Canseco? A mere subplot now. This has become more than simply another chapter in baseball's sordid entanglement with performance-enhancing drugs. It has become an epic unto itself, with a whole lot more than a spot in the Hall of Fame, or someone's good name, riding on the outcome.

How can you take your eyes off of this? It has grandstanding politicians and seedy lawyers and crooks and cops and athletes and actors -- oh, man, the acting -- all wrapped up into one ungainly, unseemly package. This is precisely the stuff that good drama thrives on. I half expect to see Jack McCoy heading into the Congressional hearing room Wednesday.

Granted, this is no fun for Clemens or McNamee. And I imagine Major League Baseball would prefer that this latest distraction just disappear -- though, you have to admit, nothing ever seems to faze the grand old game all that much. I suppose, too, that there are a lot of fans who are nearly nauseous at the prospect of more steroids headlines.

But this is different. Ever since McNamee's claims that he injected Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone were made public in the Mitchell Report last December, this has been just too compelling to ignore. There's a new, outrageous wrinkle every day.

The secret recording. The pictures of the syringes and bloody bandages. The accusation about the ace's wife. The party. Clemens' loose-lipped Texas lawyer. The admonishing committee chairman. The ace's best friend, already toting around a load of guilt, begging to go home before things turn even nastier. There's a cast of thousands.

Yet, for all the mud slinging and sound bites, the central questions remain. Nothing has been cleared up. If anything, it's all become even murkier.

Why would McNamee, for one, faced with the possibility of going to prison if he lied to federal investigators, make up a story about repeatedly injecting Clemens with performance-enhancing drugs? (The answer, according to McNamee's lawyers, is that he wouldn't. The answer, according to Clemens' attorneys, is McNamee is a "troubled" man who is lying in a "cheap publicity stunt," offering a tale that is nothing more than a "desperate 'Hail Mary' of a man who wants to ruin Roger.")

On the other hand, why would Clemens lie? He, too, would face a world of legal hurt if he's ever found guilty of fibbing to Congress. (The answer, according to his lawyers, is that he wouldn't lie. He's clean, they say. The answer, from the McNamee side, is that Clemens is trying to save his reputation and what remains of his good name.)

What will happen Wednesday when the two men appear before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform? What if they don't budge?

If these guys stick to their stories -- and, at this point, it'd be the most bizarre twist yet if they don't -- one of them will be committing perjury. In front of the U.S. bleepin' Congress.

What then?

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