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How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times?

By jscape2000

I know I said no more steroid stories, but this one is important.

Four names, including that of Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte, were not mentioned in the [Jason Grimsley] affidavit, despite a newspaper report last year that singled them out.

At the request of federal prosecutors, a judge in Phoenix unsealed the 20-page affidavit signed by Novitzky in May 2006, used to obtain a search warrant for Grimsley's home in Scottsdale, Ariz. When the affidavit first was released in June 2006, players' names were blacked out. The Associated Press asked a federal magistrate judge to make the complete statement public, but the request was denied until July 2007.

First of all, Grimsley is a man "co-operating" with the feds in the same way that Brian McNamee did. Under threat of prison time. If you held a man's feet to the fire in the same way during a trial it'd be coercing the witness.

Second, this means that McNamee is only person to accuse Clemens of wrong doing. Maybe Clemens juiced, maybe he didn't; but it's now McNamee v. Rocket, and McNamee gave his testimony thinking that Clemens had already been branded a steroid user.

It doesn't clear anyone's name, but it ought to give us pause before we drag those same names through the mud.

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