http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/13/sports/baseball/as-bud-selig-prepares-exit-roger-clemens-case-sticks-around.html 2014-11-12 18:21:58 As Selig Prepares Exit, Clemens Case Sticks Around Roger Clemens was deposed by Richard Emery in July in connection with Brian McNamee’s defamation suit against the former pitcher. A copy of the deposition was made available to The Times. === As Bud Selig prepares to depart as baseball’s longtime commissioner, he will be leaving a few items behind. In Florida, for instance, Alex Rodriguez continues to create unpleasant distractions for the sport as he proceeds with his plans to rejoin the Yankees for the 2015 season. In California, Barry Bonds is stirring again, too, as he makes some headway in his efforts to have his obstruction-of-justice conviction overturned by a federal appeals court. And in Brooklyn, Roger Clemens and his trainer turned accuser, Brian McNamee, will battle again in federal court in the spring if their lawyers cannot reach a settlement in McNamee’s defamation suit. Clemens did not testify in 2012 when he was tried and acquitted in federal court in Washington on charges that he lied to Congress when he said he did not use banned substances, as McNamee had said he did. But that was not the end of the matter. McNamee’s defamation suit persists, and in it he contends that Clemens damaged his reputation by accusing him of being both a liar and mentally unstable in response to his assertions about Clemens. If the case goes to trial in Brooklyn — perhaps during the 2015 season — Clemens, unlike in 2012, will be called to the witness stand. That could create a modest uproar that will leave baseball officials grimacing. “I can call Clemens to the stand and I intend to call him as the first witness,” said Richard Emery, the lawyer who has helped represent McNamee for much of his long battle with Clemens. In several interviews, Emery made it clear that he and McNamee, whom he described as “virtually destitute,” were open to a financial settlement of the case. For now, however, Emery is proceeding as if that will not happen. And so, in July, Clemens sat in a Manhattan law office for seven hours — or about twice as long as an average baseball game — as he was deposed by Emery. Emery made a transcript of that deposition available to The New York Times, along with a video recording, with small portions redacted because of confidentiality agreements. Over the seven hours, Clemens said little that he had not said before. He continued to dispute any suggestions that he took performance-enhancers while playing in the major leagues. For those who have followed this drama, the deposition covered familiar territory: the conversations that Clemens and his former Yankees teammate Andy Pettitte may or may not have had about human growth hormone; the H.G.H. injection that McNamee gave to Clemens’s wife, Debbie; Clemens’s insistence that McNamee did indeed inject him, but with vitamin B12 and lidocaine rather than banned substances. At one point in the deposition, Emery revisited an issue that has long proved vexing for Clemens. From the start, way back with the publication of the Mitchell report in 2007, McNamee has stated that he also gave performance-enhancers to Pettitte and another former Yankees teammate of Clemens’s, Chuck Knoblauch. Neither man has disputed McNamee’s claims — only Clemens has. “O.K.,” Emery said in his questioning of Clemens. “Now can — can you think of any reason whatsoever that Andy Pettitte — that Brian McNamee would name Andy Pettitte and Chuck Knoblauch and be lying about you but telling the truth about them?” Clemens, who won 354 games and 7 Cy Young Awards in his 24-year major league career, said he could not provide an explanation. At another point, Emery brought up a 2006 Los Angeles Times article, which turned out to be inaccurate, in which the major league pitcher Jason Grimsley was said to have identified Clemens and Pettitte and several other players as drug users. Citing email exchanges at the time between Clemens and McNamee in which Grimsley was the backdrop, Emery noted one in which the trainer angrily disputed any notion of “being a rat or flipping on you or any one of my clients.” “What do you think he meant?” Emery asked Clemens. “Doesn’t a rat have something to rat somebody out about?” “I’m not sure what he meant there,” Clemens said. “Again, I thought he was directing that toward if I lost any sponsors or. ...” Emery persisted. “Did you ever ask him what he meant when he said flipping on you or rat — ratting you out?” “I don’t believe I did,” Clemens said. Clemens’s entanglement with McNamee, and the legal problems that ensued, have seriously damaged his chances of being voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. In his two years on the Cooperstown ballot, he has received less than half the votes he would need for induction. Many baseball writers, who do the voting, clearly see Clemens as someone linked to performance-enhancers — even if he was acquitted of perjury. Asked by Emery, in the deposition, if he believed he should be in the Hall, Clemens several times responded that it was not a concern of his. “I’m kind of indifferent to the Hall of Fame,” he said at one point. Later in the deposition, he contended that he was already part of Cooperstown despite his rejection in the balloting. “As a full-fledged player I have articles and great stuff in the Hall of Fame now,” he said. Emery said the deposition, which he called a “home run” for McNamee, left him fully confident that the defamation suit would succeed if it went to trial. “A Brooklyn jury is going to consider Clemens completely delusionary and not believe a word he says, in my opinion,” Emery said. He also maintained that the different standards of proof in criminal and civil cases made it easier for McNamee to prevail over Clemens in Brooklyn. “In Washington, when he was acquitted, the jury had to find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and he never had to testify,” Emery said of Clemens. “In Brooklyn all we have to show is that by any common sense standard he is not telling the truth when he denies using performance-enhancing drugs. And he has to take the stand and face the jury.” In response, Rusty Hardin, who has represented Clemens throughout his confrontation with McNamee, said the suit was “perhaps the silliest one” he had ever been involved in. “A guy who admitted he was selling drugs to people says his reputation was hurt because one of the people he said he was selling drugs to denies that he gave him the drugs?” Hardin said. “All that Emery is trying to do is say, ‘We’re going to embarrass Roger in any way the court will allow us, so give us some money and we will keep that from happening.’ Roger is never going to pay a dime. A settlement would be perceived as Roger acknowledging he did it, and he didn’t do it, and he’s not going to pay someone money for ruining his reputation.” As this all plays out, one person who will not be involved is Selig, who will depart his office at the end of January but whose legacy will be impacted by how prevalent doping remains in baseball after he’s gone. For now, new cases like the Biogenesis scandal still emerge and old names — like Rodriguez and Bonds and Clemens and McNamee — manage to linger.