Roger Clemens

Roger Clemens is still welcome at a convention of Texas high school baseball coaches. The group reconsidered its invitation after Clemens was mentioned prominently in the Mitchell Report on steroids. On Monday, the coaches said they found no reason to prevent the star pitcher from addressing their annual meeting next month in Houston. "He still wants to come," said Jim Long, president of the Texas High School Baseball Coaches Assn. "He said he intends on speaking."

Roger Clemens will claim in an interview with CBS' "60 Minutes" on Sunday that his former strength coach Brian McNamee gave him legal injections of lidocaine and B-12, not performance-enhancing drugs, the network announced Thursday. Lidocaine is a pain reliever. "It's for my joints," Clemens tells veteran network journalist Mike Wallace in the interview, conducted at Clemens' home in Katy, Texas, "and B-12 I still take today."

Roger Clemens dismissed claims that his former strength coach repeatedly injected him with steroids and human growth hormone as "hogwash" and said such a series of injections would have left him so strong that "I should have a third ear coming out of my forehead and I should be pulling tractors with my teeth."

Sunday night, on national television, in an interview on CBS' "60 Minutes" with no less than Mike Wallace, Roger Clemens laid out his defense strategy for Mitchell Report claims that he used performance-enhancing drugs. His is not a new strategy. It is frequently used by teenagers when cornered by their parents. It is called "shout loudly in protest, look offended and talk a lot about things not related to what you are accused of."

HOUSTON -- Roger Clemens threw two high and hard fastballs at his accuser Monday, filing a lawsuit against his former strength coach in which he contended Brian McNamee made "absolutely false and defamatory" statements claiming he had injected Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone and then releasing a tape of a secretly recorded telephone call between the two men.

Within hours after former Sen. George Mitchell issued a report in which Brian McNamee contended he had injected Roger Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone, Clemens' attorney issued a statement blasting the claims as "uncorroborated allegations of a troubled man threatened with federal criminal prosecution." That is the essence of the defamation lawsuit Clemens filed this week against McNamee, one month after the report was released and Clemens subsequently denied the claims.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee announced Wednesday it will delay next week's scheduled Mitchell Report hearing featuring witnesses Roger Clemens and his former personal trainer, Brian McNamee, until Feb. 13. The committee, after discussions with the Justice Department, opted to move the hearing on performance-enhancing drug use in Major League Baseball from next Wednesday until after the scheduled Feb.

WASHINGTON -- Former New York Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens met for five hours Tuesday with the House committee investigating drug use in baseball, telling reporters afterward that he had never used banned substances. "I just want to thank the committee -- the staff that I just met with here -- they were very courteous," Clemens said after his deposition with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. "It was great to be able to tell them what I've been saying all along.

Roger Clemens' former trainer has given physical evidence to federal investigators that will confirm the pitcher used performance-enhancing drugs, the trainer's attorneys said Wednesday. The evidence includes vials with traces of steroids and human growth hormone, blood-stained syringes and gauze pads that may contain the seven-time Cy Young Award winner's DNA, the New York Daily News reported on its website, citing an anonymous source.