WASHINGTON -- Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee will face off at a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform tomorrow without testimony from two other ballplayers or a steroid distributor who had also been scheduled to testify, the committee announced last night.
Clemens, the seven-time Cy Young Award winner, says he never used performance-enhancing drugs. McNamee, the former trainer, says he injected Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone. They will be joined by Charlie Scheeler, a Baltimore lawyer, who led the staff work on the investigation into the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball compiled by former Sen. George Mitchell.
Dropped from the witness list were New York Yankees pitcher Andy Pettitte, Clemens' longtime friend, former teammate and training partner; Chuck Knoblauch, a former infielder; and Kirk Radomski, a former clubhouse attendant and drug distributor who became an informant for federal investigators and the Mitchell Report.
"Mr. Knoblauch and Mr. Pettitte answered all the Committee's questions and their testimony at the hearing is not needed," committee chairman Henry Waxman and ranking Republican Tom Davis said in a statement.
Pettitte's recusal came amid growing indications that he had given evidence against Clemens in his deposition to the committee Feb. 4. A congressional staff member and several other people familiar with the case said on the condition of anonymity that Pettitte did not want to testify publicly, on national television, against Clemens and, in essence, repeat what he had already said about him in the deposition.
Davis, of Virginia, told Newsday yesterday that in an affidavit given to the committee, Pettitte's account matches McNamee's in most details, but that in a separate affidavit to the committee, Clemens said both are mistaken.
In the Mitchell Report, McNamee said that he injected Clemens with steroids and hGH on 16 occasions between 1998 and 2001, an assertion Clemens adamantly disputes. Meanwhile, Pettitte has confirmed McNamee's statement in the Mitchell report that he injected Pettitte with hGH in 2002.
Lanny A. Breuer, a Washington attorney for Clemens, said Clemens plans to meet with about a half dozen more members of the oversight committee privately this afternoon.
Radomski did not want to give a scheduled deposition today or testify tomorrow because of concerns he would incriminate himself, two other people familiar with the proceedings told The Times. Radomski was sentenced to five years probation in a plea bargain last week but is concerned he could be prosecuted for other acts within the past five years.