The Real Reason Congress Postponed the Baseball Congressional Hearing: Roger Clemens

The media has been speculating for weeks what the upcoming congressional hearings concerning the Mitchell Report would be about. Many experts felt that the panel simply wanted to help back up the claims made in the report. There was a sense that the panel was going to ask basic questions that really had no merit and would lead to open ended responses. It appears that Congress agreed with everyone else and decided from Jan. 16 until Feb. 13. The move is going to hurt the players scheduled to appear when all is said and done.

As a reported, I have spent much of the past couple of weeks following this developing story. My opinion of the Mitchell Report was that it made many of it's claims without enough solid information to prove that it was true. This could not be any more obvious when it comes to Roger Clemens. The former pitcher was cited for using steroids based on the testimony of a former trainer. There is no actual proof to back up this claim, but the Mitchell Report decided to still use the information. This resulted in a serious black eye on Roger Clemens, one that has yet to disappear.

Roger Clemens has recently launched a campaign to prove his innocence. He has gone as far as to record phone conversations with the trainer who said he did steroids. The athlete even held a press conference to share the tape and claim his innocence. Experts believed he was going to use the upcoming congressional hearing to proclaim his innocence. The fact that he has launched this campaign may of played a major role in congress changing the date of the hearing. Basically, Clemens called out congress and their Mitchell report, thus causing them to want to respond back.