As a star-studded, nationally televised show on the eve of spring training, Wednesday's steroid hearing by a House committee is surely not the kind of curtain-raiser on the 2008 season that Major League Baseball officials would prefer.
The hearing promised fireworks from the day it was scheduled last month, when the committee invited Roger Clemens to appear and answer questions under oath about allegations from his former personal trainer, Brian McNamee, that he had received steroid and human growth hormone injections.
And that was before Clemens' wife became part of the conversation.
McNamee told House investigators during a deposition that he injected Debbie Clemens, then 39, with human growth hormone to help her prepare for a bikini photo shoot for the 2003 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, the New York Daily News reported Friday, citing an anonymous Washington source.
"McNamee discussed his wife's use before the committee," the source told the Daily News. "She was trying to get in shape for the SI cover. He told them the story that Debbie took growth."
The Daily News report could not immediately be confirmed. But it sparked a denunciation Friday from Rusty Hardin, an attorney for Clemens.
"Now there can be no doubt what kind of person we are dealing with," Hardin said in a statement, referring to McNamee. "To say that Roger directed [injections for his wife] is a colossal lie."
Debbie Clemens, who married Roger in 1984, is active in charity work in Texas. She was one of several athletes' wives photographed for the 2003 swimsuit issue.
"Roger came to me one day and told me that we had been asked to do a photo shoot for Sports Illustrated," she wrote on her website, according to the Daily News. "I had major anxiety! I was a 39-year-old mother of 4! Once I realized that this WAS going to be a reality, I decided I had to give it everything I had."
The report came at the end of a dizzying week of depositions, meetings and news conferences in the Rayburn House Office Building, where McNamee testified Thursday for seven hours, while Clemens met and greeted some of the 41 members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee who will question the seven-time Cy Young Award winner under oath about his alleged doping. He continued to visit informally with representatives Friday.
