McNamee produces John Deere evidence

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The continuing Roger Clemens steroid saga became more bizarre Monday morning when former trainer Brian McNamee turned in further evidence of Clemens’ performance-enhancing drug use to members of Congress.

“Today Mr. McNamee handed over photographs, a leather handle and a first-place trophy from the 2002 John Deere Manly Man competition,” said McNamee lawyer Earl Ward. “Under the influence of HGH, and with the training of my client, Mr. Clemens pulled a tractor 15 feet in only 94 seconds, earning the first place prize. There is a bicuspid fragment embedded in the handle that proves Mr. Clemens did, in fact, use his teeth to pull this tractor.”

When interviewed by Mike Wallace for 60 Minutes, Clemens infamously said that, if McNamee’s allegations were true, he would have been pulling tractors with his teeth. The revelation that he may, in fact, have done just that clearly benefits McNamee’s quest to prove his truthfulness.

Though Clemens had no comment on the new evidence, his attorney Rusty Hardin was quick to challenge the validity of the items in question.

“Like everything else that Brian McNamee has turned over to the authorities, these supposed pieces of evidence have been fabricated by a man grasping at straws to implicate Roger in steroid use,” Hardin said. “Blood, a piece of a tooth, a trophy with his name on it – these are all things that a major league baseball player leaves along the way as he goes through his career. That Mr. McNamee was able to gather these items and twist them around to look as though they point to Roger using steroids is no surprise whatsoever.”

The photographs that McNamee handed over to members of the Congressional Oversight Committee reportedly show Clemens at various points of the tractor pull competition, with the leather handle in his mouth and the tractor trailing behind him, and would seem to be damning evidence. But Hardin has an explanation for those as well:

“It’s called Photoshop, people. I could come here tomorrow with a picture of Oscar De La Hoya in fishnet stockings striking a sultry pose, but that doesn’t mean it actually happened, now does it?”