One of the biggest traffic days AA has ever had was the day I posted the audio of Suzyn Waldman crying on-air after the Yankees lost in the Playoffs last year (the audio is still there if you missed it). Well Waldman you may remember was the same person who went all JR on us with a WWE style announcement that Roger Clemens was coming back to the Yankees last year, and today she's still singing his praises after all that's happened.....

Twelve months later, is Waldman shocked by what has unfolded in the life of Roger Clemens?

"Nothing shocks me anymore," she said on a rare day off yesterday. "The only thing that has surprised me and disappointed me is the glee with which people are going after Roger.

"I think the more people accomplish, the bigger people are, the more excited people are to bring them down, and there's a real feeding frenzy on this man."

Waldman said she does not know whether Clemens took steroids or committed the personal indiscretions of which he has been accused.

"I can only judge people on what I observe and how they treat me," she said, "and since the mid-'80s, I've known him and all of his family and watched the kids being born and knew his mother and know his sisters ... I never saw this stuff. I don't know if it's true. Does it change what I think of Roger Clemens? I don't think so."

By all accounts Roger Clemens is a completely awful human being, but I can understand Suzyn's devotion to someone who's been in her life for 20 years. Even with evidence stacked up (most of Roger's is circumstantial) some people will just never turn on someone in their lives and you can't really blame them. Ms. Waldman even decided to compare Roger's situation to her own....

"The only thing that surprises me about anything that happens is the glee with which people are dealing with this venom," she said. "It surprised me last year when it happened to me."

Riiiiiight crying on-air is exactly the same as cheating on your wife and cheating the Sport of Baseball. She almost had me there, but I knew something asinine was coming. Good try Suzyn.

Waldman: Nothing shocks me anymore (Newsday)

There was a whole mess of stories following the Mitchell Report regarding Roger Clemens and ESPN's trip to Orlando at the end of February. The two most prominent were the Network saying they were pulling his commercial for ESPN the Weekend (which I don't think they ever did) and then two weeks ago both parties decided the trip was still on.

Well now Clemens is backing out of the event and has issued a statement regarding the decision....

“I had been looking forward to ESPN The Weekend. Given some strong feelings in some circles today, I believe my current participation could be a distraction,” Clemens stated. “The event should be an occasion for fun by all and I want that to be the case for everyone involved. So I will not be coming at this point in time but I look forward to participating in some future event.”

According to the Orlando Sentinel that leaves the likes of Donovan McNabb, Dwight Howard, Brandon Jacobs, Amani Toomer, Cal Ripken, Martina Navratilova, and ESPN's Jay Crawford, Peter Gammons, Mike Golic and Jemele Hill.

Who needs him?!

Clemens out from ESPN The Weekend at Walt Disney World (Orlando Sentinel)

So that was fun wasn't it? And it solved a whole lot of issues as well right??? Good, glad to hear. Just want to share the end of the whole mess that was the Congressional hearing if you didn't watch all five hours of the thing like I did (dumbest. idea. ever). Roger Clemens came pretty unglued during Congressman Waxman's closing statements and it was pretty hilarious. Enjoy...

Yep that about sums the day up. If you didn't watch I envy you. So who's the big winner in all of this? The NFL....I didn't even realize that Goodell's meeting on the Hill was today.

I'm watching so I figured I'd try and to all of you a service by posting a few of the videos throughout the morning. There's been a lot of talk about Andy Pettitte "mis-remembering" and "natural tree roots" from Clemens and both he and McNamee are sticking to their stories. Clemens has also used two stories to explain the misremembering on Pettitte's behalf. One being that his wife read a USA Today report about it and another being that he and Andy watched a program on four older gentlemen using HGH to gain their quality of life back. Should be an interesting day.

Leave your thoughts and comments and I'll update this space with vids as I get them loaded.

Clemens Opening Statement....

Clemens gets confused and then turns to his council for help. This is the point in the hearing when it turns into a political war between Democrats and Republicans...



And your last video....Congressman Burton going after McNamee....



This whole thing is just one giant mess. No one can prove anything at all and never will be able to. It's a Political Standoff between Republicans and Democrats and hasn't solved a damn thing. Pointless if you ask me.

ESPN the Weekend is always a watershed moment in the year for the Leader. As cheesy as the idea seems, the event is pretty packed with stars and it gives fans a ton of access to their idols. Roger Clemens was scheduled to attend the event, but all signs pointed to him skipping out on the weekend. Well that's not the case at all. Roger will be there front and center.....

Even as the controversy surrounding Roger Clemens intensifies, the pitcher plans to attend an ESPN-sponsored event at Disney World later this month. Representatives for Clemens late last week informed ESPN that he will stick to his scheduled promotional appearance over the weekend of Feb. 29-March 2.

Clemens was scheduled to serve as a top draw at "ESPN The Weekend" before the Mitchell Report was released in December that alleged he had used steroids multiple times--and the network began running an on-air spot promoting it. But the day the report came out, ESPN pulled the humorous ad, citing Clemens' role in a controversial news story.

"Each decision was an independent decision and there are different factors that go into each ... in the case of him attending, we're obviously interested in having him and he's expressed that he's interested in attending," said ESPN's Josh Krulewitz, who declined to offer more details.

Nevermind the fact that ESPN is sticking with an alleged steroid user as a main draw, but isn't it odd that Clemens would even decide to attend after taking a giant beating from the "Leader's" reporters over the past month? Also, ESPN was supposed to have pulled the commercial with Clemens on the Roller Coaster, but they never actually did, and now he's still heading to Florida at the end of the month...

It's a really odd decision from both parties if you ask me.

Clemens Headed To Disney After Congress (Media Post)
ESPN Pulls Roger Clemens Commercial (Awful Announcing)

The "Leader" decided to pull the Roger Clemens roller coaster spot for the upcoming Disney Weekend in reaction to him being mentioned in the Mitchell report. I swear I've seen it in the past few days, but I guess I was wrong. Via Sports Business Daily....

ESPN last Thursday, the day the Mitchell Report was released, pulled a spot featuring Roger Clemens that promoted "ESPN The Weekend," according to David Goetzl of MEDIA POST. The spot "continued to air Monday during live events" that were streamed on ESPN360.com, in what ESPN called an "oversight." ESPN VP/PR Josh Krulewitz: "Given he's a part of an ongoing major news story of a controversial nature, we thought [pulling the commercial] was the appropriate thing to do at this time." But Krulewitz added that "there are no plans to remove Clemens' photo from the 'ESPN The Weekend' promotional Web site," where Clemens is seen with his arm around a Disney character.

I guess that's the right move, but it seems like a little much when they continue to employ people who've taken steroids as well. There's also no word on whether Clemens will still be attending the Disney trip as previously scheduled. I'm guessing he won't be there.

AA is going to be a little late today, so until I make it in...enjoy this video of Roger Clemens in the yeaaaaaaaar Two Thoooooouuuuusand (and fifty seven).

(Via TBL)

Has a minor-league pitching prospect ever generated this much ink after one mediocre start? Some clown named William Clemens made his first start for the Yankees A-ball affiliate in Tampa, and the newspapers are going nuts about it. I mean, sure, he helped the Texas Longhorns win a national championship, but at his advanced age, how do we even know he'll be any good? His numbers weren't that great, after all, but the organization is hurting for pitching, so he'll be moving up to the double-A Trenton Thunder in time for a Wednesday start.

Why are the journalists who cover the Yankees' farm teams so excited about this old man? Find out after the jump.

OK, I've had my fun. It could have been interesting to see what the New York papers are saying about Roger Clemens, but I thought it would be WAAAAY more fun to see what the papers that cover Yankee affiliates have to say. I mean, they're about to be touched by the hand of the almighty Rog, right? It's not often anyone reads about the Trenton Thunder even in Trenton, so readership has to be sky-high for some of these fellas right now.

The Tampa Tribune already HAS a MLB team to write about, but the Tampa Yankees just handed them the biggest story they've had in years. Martin Fennelly drew the lucky straw, and got to write about prima donna moments like this one:

The Hummer that he rode in on was parked outside a few hours before Friday night's Single-A game between Clemens' Tampa Yankees and the Fort Myers Miracle. We don't mean outside Legends Field. We mean outside the Tampa clubhouse door, in a hallway inside the stadium. It's good to be the Rocket.

And Martin, that card, really had me going with this description of a pre-game moment with a local youth.

Clemens let little Nicholas put resin on his hand and had a hug for the youngster after the national anthem. Clemens, the father of four boys, was reportedly so enamored with the tyke that he offered to purchase him from the Ketterer family for $2.3 million.

The best part, though? Attendance at the A-ball game was 10,257. The announced attendance at Tropicana for the Devil Rays/Marlins interleague dustup was 13,003. That's right, "the show" came thisclose to playing second fiddle to a rehab start. Read the rest here.

Thanks to the parent club's horrendous injury situation, it looks like we're not going to be able to keep Roger down on the farm for long. The talk is that Wednesday will bring his debut for the Trenton Thunder (try not to choke on the exhaust from Rocket's Hummer as he roars out of town Thursday morning, Trentonians!)

Apparently, everybody in Trenton wanted a piece of this story, because this piece is attributed to "Staff and Wire Reports". Either that or nobody in Trenton knows how to write a column - I don't know.

This sentence has a local flavor to it, however:

He's slated to make his next one in a Thunder uniform on Wednesday night at Waterfront Park against the Portland Sea Dogs.

Holy shit! The Sea Dogs? That is a hot, hot rivalry. Look for Rocket to challenge Aarom Baldiris early by throwing high and tight. There is no love lost between these two warriors.

Also, I'd like to introduce the most terrifying mascot I've ever seen.

Donnie Collins at the Scranton Times-Tribune can see the writing on the wall - the Yanks need pitchers, and Rocket is not known for his patience, so the Greater Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area might get skipped on the Yankee farm tour. However, I would like to seriously thank Mr. Collins for not just adding a one-paragraph tag to the wire story and calling it a day. He actually had some amusing lines.

In a nutshell, Clemens gave up a towering home run to a sweet-swinging lefty outfield prospect named Erik Lis, who wasn’t quite 2 months old when Clemens made his big-league debut against Cleveland in May 1984. He also gave up a line-drive double to smallish second baseman Toby Gardenhire, who is known more for being his father’s son — that would be Minnesota Twins manager Ron Gardenhire — than for the .171 batting average he was packing before the game.

and this nugget:

If we were handing out grades for Hall of Famers pitching against unproven youngsters who had only ever seen him in video games before, Clemens could make a case for a very stout B-plus. He will make another minor-league start, most likely at Double-A Trenton on Wednesday. A repeat of what he did Friday, and selling him on another workout in the minors might be like trying to get Donald Trump to buy a Ford Focus.

Whoa, where did the Trump reference come from? Unnecessary. In case you hadn't heard, Roger himself has two Hummers, and he's allowed to park them on the warning track if he so desires. I don't think he'll be buying a Focus either, rendering your stretchy simile moot, Mr. Collins. Still, a very stout B-plus for making an effort.

And, finally, a man who sports one of the sourest official byline photos I've ever seen, the New York Post's Kevin Kernan. He doesn't give a rat's ass where Clemens pitches on his way back up - he likes the way Rocket is taking the time to mentor some of the youngsters as he goes.

The Rocket not only went through one of his typical workouts that included everything from his abdominal crunches to tossing a football, but for the first time, he was able to take Junior Rocket Phil Hughes under his wing. Hughes will earn a Master’s Degree in power pitching from Clemens over the rest of this season.

Clemens spent close to 30 minutes on the mound with Hughes, going over the finer points of his delivery. At one point Clemens got down in the dirt and drew a line, showing Hughes the proper landing spot for his right foot. Clemens also demonstrated the proper arm slot, release point, leg balance, and positioning of hands in the stretch.

If he fixes Igawa, I say the Yankees owe him another $20 mil.

And, just in case you're wondering, four of the six Yanks affiliates are also called the Yankees. Man, those guys know how to ruin everything, even the smorgasbord of fabulous monikers that is Minor League baseball. Thank goodness for the Charleston RiverDogs.

I have been your host, Extra P.

On a night where ESPN kept the Roger Clemens hype machine running at full speed by televising his first outing of 2007 (against the Class A Fort Myers Miracle), the Boston Red Sox and NESN countered admirably, taking advantage of a rain out to air the "Red Sox Classic" from April 29, 1986 - the day Clemens mowed down twenty Seattle Mariners. (I don't know what was shown in the game's regular time slot, but this came on around the time they would have been doing the "Sox in 2" encore.)

Well played, NESN. Well played.

I don't remember this game at all - I was 6 1/2 when it was played - so it's always good to hear the broadcasters (Ned Martin and someone I can't place - thought it was Jerry Remy at first but now I'm not so sure) and the way they call the action. It's a very laid-back approach that works because Martin managed to weave all the necessary information into the in-game banter with his partner. They covered a lot of ground, but never allowed the broadcast to stray more than a step or two off the path of the game.

The video of the game doesn't appear to be available on YouTube, so you'll have to be content with a link to the box score from Baseball-Reference.com. Check out that attendance. And, just believe I love you all, here's another link, to his second twenty strikeout game ten years later against Detroit. Note the pitch count. - OMDQ

NESN is reporting via the YES Network that Roger Clemens announced to the Yankee Stadium crowd today that he has signed a deal with the team and will join the pitching staff as soon as he is major league ready.

The terms weren't disclosed during the short report I just saw, but I was telling my father last night that with their pitching woes, the Yankees were probably going to throw as much money as it took to get him into pinstripes. Money and unlimited shoulder massages from Andy Pettitte.

I'm not one to wish direct harm on anyone, but Clemens is 44 years old (45 in August). The clock runs out on every professional athlete eventually - here's hoping this is the year it happens to Clemens.

(Photo: NASBL)

(Update: the mainstream media and unkempt blogosphere united as one to jump all over this story as soon as Clemens picked up the microphone at Yankee Stadium, but one analysis stands head and shoulders above the rest. Lizzy from Babes Love Baseball, you have the floor.)